Old Dog, New Tricks

10Oct07

The woman was sitting on the front steps, wrapped in her overcoat, with one dog on her lap and the other with its snout pushed up against her heavy shoe. Her sodden face glistened tranquilly in the murky fog. Larsen cursed himself for coming, began to feel that he was dark and clumsy, an intruder. As he touched his hat brim in greeting he found himself forced to change his mind about the woman’s age. The two of them, exhausted, disbelieving, were at the centre of a cloud. No sounds filtered through to their rescue.

- Juan Carlos Onetti, The ShipyardFrancisco Goya, The Dog (detail), 1820-23, via The Artchive .

The young Peruvian writer Diego Trelles Paz, whose most recent novel, El círculo de los escritores asesinos, was published by the Spanish publisher Candaya in 2005, has a dog called Onetti, en honor a uno de los maestros.

Filed under: authors, books, latin america   |  2 Comments
Tags: diego trelles paz, dogs, juan carlos onetti