CHILDISH LITERATURE

How do we write about the singular experience of parenthood? Written in a ‘state of attachment’ or ‘under the influence’ of fatherhood Childish Literature is an eclectic guide for novice parents showing how the birth and growth of a child changes not only the present and the future but also reshapes our perceptions of the past. Shifting from moving dispatches from his son’s first year of existence to a treatise on ‘football sadness’ to a psychedelic narrative where a man tries mid-magic mushroom trip to re-learn the subtle art of crawling this latest work from Alejandro Zambra shows how children shield adults from despondency self-absorption and the tyrannies of chronological time. At once a chronicle of fatherhood a letter to a child and a work of fiction Childish Literature is the latest virtuosic addition to the oeuvre of one of the most exciting Latin American writers in recent decades.