Join us

Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Newsletter

Marvel Moreno

December Breeze

Cover: December Breeze - Marvel Moreno

Marvel Moreno

December Breeze

2022, pp. 448, Paperback
ISBN: 9781787704091
Translated by: Isabel Adey, Charlotte Coombe
Region: Colombia
Available as ebook Available as ebook Available as ebook
£ 14.99

The book

A masterful novel exploring womanhood, class, and tradition in 1950s Colombia

“One of the hundred most influential women in the history of Colombia.”—Cromos magazine

From her home in Paris, Lina recalls the story of three women whose lives unfold in the conservative city of Barranquilla in Colombia. Amongst parties at the Country Club and strolls along the promenade in Puerto Colombia, unfurls a story of sensuality supressed by violence; a narrative of oppression in which Dora, Catalina and Beatriz are victims of a patriarchal system living in and among the fragile threads of the fabric of society. 

In Lina’s obsessive recounting of the past, this masterful novel transforms anecdotes of a life into an absolute view of the world, a profound panorama of Colombian society towards the end of the 50s.

Written from personal memories and historical research, this is a novel that is both precise and poetic, a novel that immortalises—from the distant perspective of its narrator—the events that took place in a small seaside town.

Distancing herself from her contemporaries of the Latin-American literary boom with a boldly feminist narrative, Marvel Moreno has created a world that both mirrors the close-up, private lives of the people of Barranquilla and the human condition itself.

The author

Marvel Moreno
Marvel Moreno was born in Barranquilla, the capital city of the Atlántico department of Colombia, in 1939. As a teenager, under her father’s guidance, she began to read the great writers, many of whom would later come to bear a definitive influence upon her writing: Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner among them. Moreno maintained a close relationship with the members of the “Barranquilla Group,” including Gabriel García Márquez. She is well known in Colombia and is considered one of the most important Colombian writers. Her novel December Breeze was a finalist in the Plaza y Janés International Literary Prize in 1985. In 1989, Moreno received the Grinzane-Cavour prize awarded in Italy for best foreign book. She died in 1995 in Paris.

Books by region

  • Cover: The Night Will Be Long - Santiago Gamboa

    Santiago Gamboa

    The Night Will Be Long

    2021, pp. 368, £ 13.99
    An addictive and nuanced narrative about conflict-rife Colombia.
  • Cover: Shooting Down Heaven - Jorge Franco

    Jorge Franco

    Shooting Down Heaven

    2020, pp. 352, £ 13.99
    A novel about the children raised by 1990s Colombia’s most dangerous drug lords
  • Cover: Return to the Dark Valley - Santiago Gamboa

    Santiago Gamboa

    Return to the Dark Valley

    2017, pp. 464, £ 13.99
    Return to the Dark Valley tells the stories of four immigrants united by their need to return to their place of origin and exact vengeance.
  • Cover: Necropolis - Santiago Gamboa

    Santiago Gamboa

    Necropolis

    2012, pp. 464, £ 12.99
    “Santiago Gamboa and García Márquez are the two most important Colombian writers.”—Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

More suggestions

  • Cover: Y/N - Esther Yi

    Esther Yi

    Y/N

    2024, pp. 196, £ 9.99
    A novel about obsessive fandom and literary self-destruction.
  • Cover: A Good Life - Virginie Grimaldi

    Virginie Grimaldi

    A Good Life

    2024, pp. 288, £ 9.99
    An emotional and uplifting novel from the French Marian Keyes
  • Cover: Dog - Rob Perry

    Rob Perry

    Dog

    2024, pp. 304, £ 14.99
    The moving story of a life-changing relationship between a boy and a dog
  • Cover: Lambda - David Musgrave

    David Musgrave

    Lambda

    2024, pp. 352, £ 9.99
    A chilling dystopia exploring AI technology and migration
  • Cover: The Axeman’s Carnival - Catherine Chidgey

    Catherine Chidgey

    The Axeman’s Carnival

    2024, pp. 336, £ 14.99
    Catherine Chidgey at her finest – comic, profound, poetic and true Winner of the Ockham NZ Fiction Book Award
  • Cover: Love at Six Thousand Degrees - Maki Kashimada

    Maki Kashimada

    Love at Six Thousand Degrees

    2024, pp. 128, £ 14.99
    An unsettling love story set in Japan and grounded on the traumas of history