Elena Knows

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Through a compounded deconstruction of both crime and morality, Elena Knows points to the limitations of human perception ( thinking that one does know, while, really, not knowing much at all) and human endurance. The implication being that a person can be brought to go against what seems to most define their personality, thus revealing the Emptiness underneath, in its crude and indelible concreteness. And, ultimately, the essential aloneness of the human condition. I do want to live, you know? In spite of this body, in spite of my dead daughter, Elena says, crying, I still choose to live, is that arrogance? Not long ago I was told I was arrogant. Don’t keep the names other people give you, Elena.

What are the different ways you’ve seen love expressed. Have you seen love expressed through fighting? I found the novella intensely thought-provoking and well-written. I traveled with Elena and experienced her discomfort, her drive, her fear, her anguish, her personal experience, and learned from her experience as an individual living with Parkinson's. I have always been fascinated with okapis because they look like made-up animals, or creatures assembled in a drunken stupor,” says 48-year-old Leky, speaking from her flat in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg. “This novel was similar: I wanted to bring together parts that didn’t necessarily feel like they belonged together.”

Translated from Spanish (Argentina) by Frances Riddle (Charco Press, 2021)

My first reading memory is a book called Chico Carlo by Juana de Ibarbourou, an iconic Uruguayan female author. It’s a book that was very widely read when I was a girl. There’s a story in it called “The Damp Stain”, in which a solitary child invents stories based on what they can see in a damp patch on the ceiling of their bedroom. A kind of kid-lit Borgesian Aleph. This image, this reading, has always stayed with me, and I think there’s a lot of it in the writer that I became. The Argentinian journalist and star author lures her readers in with the deceit of a crime novel starring a Miss Marple-like elderly mother-turned-investigator, only to then discuss the personal and societal implications of chronic illness and women's issues - excellent move, Claudia Piñeiro (fun fact: Piñeiro is the third most translated Argentinian author, after Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar). The title-giving Elena - who, like all of us, is under the impression that she has figured all kinds of things out, thus amassing lots of false convictions - is very ill with Parkinson, when her daughter and caregiver Rita is found hanging in the bell tower of the church. Elena is convinced that Rita, a devout Catholic who feared lightning, would never have gone to the tower in the rain to commit the sin of suicide.

Ultimately, Carrera finds hope in the deep relationship he builds with his granddaughter. He sees in her all that is good in humanity and instructs her to lead the fight for truth, a challenge that she is ready and willing to accept. “It is for all of us that the novel, at the beginning and end, invites even secular people to pray,” Veronesi says. As the father of five children, he wants his readers to know how much of our future lies in the hands of younger generations, and that it is they, in particular, who need our prayers Sophia Seymour and Nina Brown For anyone interested the digital launch event recording with the author and translator can be found here: I wanted to write a book about such big and vague issues that I felt I needed to locate them in a place that could be contained,” she adds. “I write about love and death, and how they are connected – it doesn’t get more diffuse than that.” Philip Oltermann He didn't leave but he became quite subdued after that. And while we went on to discuss further aspects of one of the main themes in Elena Knows, the Parkinson's theme, and spoke about the dilemma of being a carer for a parent with the disease, we all seemed of one mind in avoiding any further mention of the other important theme, abortion.But Veronesi and Carrera do share a similar concern about the future of western society. In the penultimate chapter, Carrera rails against the tyranny of individualism and laments that rationality, compassion and generosity are fading away; all of which is undermining our societal structures and putting the world in “great danger”. “The word freedom itself has become an ‘open sesame’ to the lowest forms of selfishness and social dysfunctionality,” Veronesi says. Ito’s career as a journalist prevented her from staying silent, she says; if she couldn’t face the truth of what had happened to her, how could she continue her work? “It has been difficult, but rape is visible now. We see more cases in the media, we’ve had demonstrations in Tokyo and in many other cities. I have no regrets.” David McNeill As if her religion were based more in the rituals, in the folklore and traditions, than in the dogma or faith. Rita, in her way, had God, a God of her own who she put together like a puzzle with her own rules. Her God and her dogma. Elena didn’t. How does the current Russian government’s response compare? “In 1939, with the help of the NKVD, the epidemic was avoided. In 2020, it failed,” she says. “But we do not know which is more dangerous for humankind: the plague or the secret police.” Matthew Janney Narrator Elena (who reminded me quite bit in stubbornness and demeanor to the main character of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk) struggling with Parkinson, is on a quest to find out the reason behind the death of her daughter.