A Luminous Republic

De: Andrés Barba, Lisa Dillman - translator, Edmund White - foreword

Narrado por: Jonathan Davis

A new novel from a Spanish literary star about the arrival of feral children to a tropical city in Argentina, and the quest to stop them from pulling the place into chaos.

San Cristóbal was an unremarkable city—small, newly prosperous, contained by rain forest and river. But then the children arrived.

No one knew where they came from: 32 kids, seemingly born of the jungle, speaking an unknown language. At first they scavenged, stealing food and money and absconding to the trees. But their transgressions escalated to violence, and then the city’s own children began defecting to join them. Facing complete collapse, municipal forces embark on a hunt to find the kids before the city falls into irreparable chaos.

Narrated by the social worker who led the hunt, A Luminous Republic is a suspenseful, anguished fable that “could be read as Lord of the Flies seen from the other side, but that would rob Barba of the profound originality of his world” (Juan Gabriel Vásquez).

©2020 Andrés Barba; Lisa Dillman (translation) (P)2020 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

Bloated

This short audiobook would’ve been half the size of the author didn’t spend so much time pontificating. I liked the story; I just wish he would’ve told the story quicker. There were some good ideas proposed but they get diluted when the author ruminates on the next thing and the next.