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PILAR QUINTANA is a Colombian author. She debuted with Cosquillas en la lengua in 2003, and published Coleccionistas de polvos raros in 2007, the same year the Hay Festival selected her as one of the most promising young authors of Latin America. Her latest novel, The Bitch, is 2020 National Book Awards Translated Literature Finalist, has won the prestigious Colombian Biblioteca de Narrativa Prize, and was selected for several Best Books of 2017 lists, as well as being chosen as one of the most valuable objects to preserve for future generations in a marble time capsule in Bogot. The Bitch is the first of her works to be translated into English. LISA DILLMAN lives in Georgia, USA, where she translates Spanish, Catalan, and Latin American writers and teaches at Emory University. Some of her recent translations include Such Small Hands (winner of the 2018 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Award) by Andrs Barba; Signs Preceding the End of the World (winner of the 2016 Best Translated Book Award), Kingdom Cons, and The Transmigration of Bodies (shortlisted for the 2018 Dublin Literary Award) by Yuri Herrera; and Breathing Through the Wound and A Million Drops by Vctor del rbol.
A searing psychological portrait of a troubled woman contending with her instinct to nurture is at the heart of Colombian writer Quintana's slim, potent English-language debut...The brutal scenes unfold quickly, with lean, stinging prose. Quintana's vivid novel about love, betrayal, and abandonment hits hard. --Publishers Weekly, Starred Review Quintana patiently explores [the] darkening mood...an intense story --Kirkus Reviews Engrossing...The Bitch is a subtle, moving novel about a struggle to overcome loneliness in an eerie place, among memorable people and animals. --Foreword Reviews The magic of this sparse novel is its ability to talk about many things, all of them important, while seemingly talking about something else entirely. What are those things? Violence, loneliness, resilience, cruelty. Quintana works wonders with her disillusioned, no-nonsense, powerful prose. --Juan Gabriel Vasquez The Bitch is a novel of true violence. Artist that she is, Pilar Quintana uncovers wounds we didn't know we had, shows us their beauty, and then throws a handful of salt into them. --Yuri Herrera, author of Signs Preceding the End of the World Pilar Quintana weaves human nature and the chaos of the universe together with extraordinary mastery. This is a novel full of mysteries about unfulfilled desire, guilt, and the places where love still exists. --Gabriela Aleman, author of Poso Wells A raw yet beautiful story about maternity and the jungle. --Hay Festival The world of Damaris is heartbreakingly true, it's there, closer than we think, and yet remains invisible. --El Pais Pilar Quintana has created a psychological tale that sweeps and drags us like the waves of the sea. --El Tiempo To narrate the baroque jungle and American sea with such sobriety is a great triumph. --Semana The Bitch is far from simple in its brevity, communicating an inner universe that readers can easily identify with, by having experienced similar circumstances, reliving childhood, or relating to the portrayal of the landscape and those who inhabit it. This novel is a little gem that reminds me, in its intensity and fluidity, of, The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway, or The Pearl by Steinbeck. --El Nuevo Dia A profound and moving drama about life and destiny. --WMagazin A tale narrated with skill and a steady hand. --El Espectador
