THE INVISIBLE MOUNTAIN

Written by Carolina De Robertis

Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Knopf (August 25, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307271633
ISBN-13: 978-0307271631


FROM THE PUBLISHER

From the verdant hills of Rio de Janeiro to Evita Perón’s glittering Buenos Aires, from the haven of a corner butcher shop to the halls of the United States Embassy in Montevideo, this gripping novel—at once expansive and lush with detail—examines the intertwined fates of a continent and a family in upheaval. The Invisible Mountain is a deeply intimate exploration of the search for love and authenticity in the lives of three women, and a penetrating portrait of the small, tenacious nation of Uruguay, shaken by the gales of the twentieth century.

On the first day of the year 1900, a small town deep in the Uruguayan countryside gathers to witness a miracle—the mysterious reappearance of a lost infant, Pajarita—and unravel its portents for the century. Later, as a young woman in the capital city—Montevideo, brimming with growth and promise—Pajarita begins a lineage of fiercely independent women with her enamored husband, Ignazio, a young immigrant from Italy and the inheritor of both a talent for boat making and a latent, more sinister family trait. Their daughter, Eva, a fragile yet ferociously stubborn beauty intent on becoming a poet, overcomes an early, shattering betrayal to embark on a most unconventional path toward personal and artistic fulfillment. And Eva’s daughter, Salomé, awakening to both her sensuality and political convictions amid the violent turmoil of the late 1960s, finds herself dangerously attracted to a cadre of urban guerrilla rebels, despite the terrible consequences of such principled fearlessness.

Provocative, heartbreaking and ultimately life-affirming, The Invisible Mountain is a poignant celebration of the potency of familial love, the will to survive in the most hopeless of circumstances, and, above all, the fierce, fortifying connection between mother and daughter.


Carolina De Robertis grew up in an Uruguayan family that immigrated to England, Switzerland, and California. The Invisible Mountain, her first novel, will be published in the U.S. in August 2009, and is also forthcoming in fifteen other countries and eleven languages. Her fiction and literary translations have appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, ColorLines, and Zoetrope: Allstory, among others. Her translation of the contemporary Chilean novella Bonsai, by Alejandro Zambra, was named one of the Ten Best Translated Books of 2008 by the journal Three Percent. Prior to completing her first book, she worked in women’s rights organizations for ten years, on issues ranging from rape to immigration. She currently lives in Oakland, California, where she is at work on her second novel, about a young Argentinian woman who discovers an explosive secret linking her origins to the disappearances of the 1970s.