Tracing the veins of the earth

The stillness of a river veils the secrets of generations of denizens and visitors, inhabitants and intruders. In Selva Almada’s 10th book and her fourth in translation, Not a River (2024), an unnamed Argentinian river hides many such secrets in her belly.

Twenty years after a tragic accident, Enero Rey and El Negro visit the river and its adjacent island with the son of their long-dead friend, Eusebio. “[P]art of a person stays behind in the place where they die,” Tilo, the son, reasons with himself, as he misses his father on their fishing trip.

The three fish (rather, hunt) a magnificent stingray and decide to tie it with ropes and spread it on their camping site, “like an old blanket hanging in the shade.” This crude display of — and later, disregard for — the island’s marine wealth not only offends the islanders but also insults them. The tension between the locals and the three outsiders bubbles before it boils over; rage waiting to unleash. “[I]t’s not a river, it’s this river… What gave them the right? It wasn’t a ray. It was that ray,” thinks Aguirre, the face of this rage. The story, soaked in rugged masculinity, carries forward the theme from Almada’s other two novels in the loose trilogy — The Wind that Lays Waste (2019) and Brickmakers (2021).

On the other end of the island, another tragedy from the past continues to live in its survivors. Siomara, survived by her daughters — Mariela and Luisina, who together spell trouble — refuses to accept her loss and continues to light fires, which is her way of letting her rage out of her chest.

In Not a River, the river, the island, its woods, insects, fish and ghoulish birds, have a life of their own. While locals are at ease with the ways of nature, finding respite in it if nothing else, outsiders are wary of its eerie sounds and ominous atmosphere. The rural landscape comes alive in Almada’s novel; as do dreams, spirits and premonitions. “This man isn’t from these woods and the woods are well aware. But they leave him be. He can come in, he can stay for as long as it takes to gather kindling. Then the woods themselves will spit him out, his arms full of branches, back to the shore.”

Originally published in Spanish in 2021, No Es Un Río, the book has been translated into English by Annie McDermott, who has previously translated two of the author’s earlier works. The writing (and the cover) mimics the psychological tool, ‘River of Life’ — where the past intermingles with the present, the dead shadow the living, and the lines blur, like tributaries drawing out of a river and merging back into it.

McDermott agrees: “The line breaks and lack of chapter divisions make the text itself river-shaped, its short sentences lapping at the silence like waves on the shore.” What Not a River lacks in dialogue and punctuation, it makes up for it in space. Unlike American writer Lucy Ellman’s long-running, breathless sentences without a break (in Ducks, 2019), Selva Almada’s sentences are cut short and stretched over the page, allowing readers to stop and evaluate the scene, its setting and its source, neither of which are explicitly mentioned and can only be inferred. The frugality of her writing acts as a meditative device, keeping readers on their toes: attentive, present and conscious of the story.

Almada, who considers herself a “culture worker”, counts Not a River as a tribute to her Argentinian heritage and attempts to honour the communities marginalised by the growing rural-urban wedge in the country today. The novel exists in as much that is left unsaid as it does in what is said. The less Almada writes the more one can hear: in the male gaze objectifying women; in the sexual appeal of young girls and its lack in married women or mothers; in forced backstreet abortions; in valuing a son’s death more than a daughter’s; and in the subtle ownership of a woman’s body and by extension, her life. The novel, despite being economical, thrives in these details of the social fabric that governs the lives of men, women and children.

Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2024, it fits right in with the other novels on the list, which has a special place this year for Latin American Literature, and fiction that observes collective history through personal memory.

Selva Almada’s Not a River is a short novel; its length deceives readers of its depth, much like a river. Chronology is a myth in the novel’s universe and Almada is unapologetic for it. It is as much a human story as it is a story of a ruthless island, disturbed time and again by outsiders. An extremely visual, alive and haunting tale of relationships “made of cobweb”. “One little breeze and they break.”