Nancy
2015
Nancy, a woman diagnosed with a terminal cancer, is admitted to a hospital in northern Chile, and from there, with her death looming, she reflects on her tumultuous life —her dysfunctional parents, her first sexual experience with a gypsy named Jesulé, the absurd end of her alcoholic husband, the disappearance of her beloved brother, the never-ending feeling of hunger. The story is told in a permanent circular logic, and the narration is saturated with the figure "X", which functions as punctuation or a religious symbol. This novel constructs a dramatic and sordid narrative, but without falling into extreme drama or sordidness. A fast-paced story that fuses a realistic and straightforward prose with biblical references as well as literary experimentation and a masterfully achieved poetic tone.
Critics
"Lloret uses such an interesting experimental procedure —he randomly replaces some lines, consonants, or words with the letter “X”. This X works as a multipurpose sign, destined to mark a religious and mortuary route.
Nancy is a memorable and touching character, because of her reserved warmth, her odd sadness –full of traces of a mysticism that has no referents in literature– that drives her to look for a way out and to accept with a mysterious pragmatism the failure of her life."
—Patricia Espinosa, Las Últimas Noticias
“This first novel by Bruno Lloret, born in 1990, comes to reinforce a very notorious current trend —the best Chilean narrative is being written by young writers. [...] Nancy is filled with these three fundamental qualities –talent, originality, intelligence– but has also a few more, such as sophistication, an experimental audacity, and an uninhibited –sometimes macabre– sense of humor."
—Juan Manuel Vial, La Tercera
Rights sold
• Spanish (Chile): Cuneta
• English (Australia and New Zealand): Giramondo