Two hundred blue whales and four horses
(doscientas ballenas azules y cuatro caballos)
1981
In Two Hundred Blue Whales, Mexican writer Margo Glantz takes us closer to the imminent disappearance of the silky smooth-skinned cetaceans, and how these mammals have been portrayed in world literature and mythology. Zeus, Iphigenia, Agamemnon, Noah and Job, as well as Melville and Borges, have woven or have been involved in stories linked to these sea monsters. It is thus a book not only about the extinction of species, but also about creation and literature.
In Four Horses, the author portrays, also in a masterful way, these animals "that are everywhere", always standing, haughty, proud, with silky fur and beautiful manes, as well as the possibility that we have to travel through universal history through each of the horses that have accompanied all kinds of battles.
Two books full of poetic images that revolve around animal violence and the relationship between animals and humanity.
"In this book, Margo Glantz tests the possibilities of writing, which throws itself into the hunt for itself, emulating the voyage of the Pequod in Moby Dick. What in her first book is perceived as a flirtation between the sign and the blank space, in Two Hundred Whales acquires the sacred sense of writing: black fire on white fire, or rather, whales that "wear black on the outside and white in the belly". In this book, creation is approached in the full sense of the word and, thus, it is not only about the text that results from the creative process, but also about the words (verbs, but also pronouns, adjectives and nouns, such as whale) that created the world, that have been transforming humanity".
Critics
“Las genealogías is an excellent example of feminine autobiography, as a hybrid text, and as an extraordinary contribution to the growing body of Latin American Jewish literature.”
—Darrell Lochart.
“To speak of Las genealogías by Margo Glantz is to speak of the author herself and of a process of searching for identity.”
—Elizabeth Otero-Krauthammer
“[Glantz’s] writing continues but also renovates and diversifies a Jewish vein of humor and critical observation… it is possible to point out certain tendencies that are often identified as hallmarks of Jewish humor and that are very evidently typical of the wit of Margo Glantz.”
—Naomi Lindstrom
Rights sold
• Spanish (Chile): Los libros de la mujer rota
• Spanish (US and Canada): Charco Press
• English (World): Charco Press
