Bonsai

Available for the first time from Penguin in a beautifully rendered new translation, international literary sensation Alejandro Zambra's emotionally engrossing and brilliantly distilled first novel-a "wrenching account of failed young love…a total knockout" (Junot Díaz)
Bonsai is the story of Julio and Emilia, two young Chilean students who, seeking truth in great literature, find one another instead. As they shadow one another throughout their young adulthoods, falling together and drifting apart, Zambra spins a formally innovative, metafictional tale that brilliantly explores the relationship between love, art, and memory.

Alejandro Zambra is the author of Multiple Choice; My Documents, a finalist for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award; and three other works of fiction: Chilean Poet, Ways of Going Home, and The Private Lives of Trees. The recipient of numerous literary prizes in Chile and around the world, as well as a Cullman Center Fellowship, he has had stories published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, and Harper's, among others. He lives in Mexico City. Megan McDowell (translator) is the recipient of a 2020 Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among other awards, and has been short- or long-listed three times for the Booker International prize.