Nothing But Dust

Description

By the time Rafael is born, the family farm has already gone to hell. Rafael's father has abandoned them. His older brothers, the twins Mauro and Joaquin, blame Rafael for their father's departure and exact revenge on their baby brother. Steban, his other sibling, is a simpleton whose affections and allegiances change with the shifting winds. Ruling over this dysfunctional roost is a tyrannical and avaricious mother. On the lonely Patagonian steppe, life is lived to the rhythms of the family farm. But there is nothing bucolic about the existence described in these pages: it is ruthless, unforgiving, and bloody. As the family tensions mount, daily life degenerates into open warfare. 'A combination of a South American Western and a noir, Nothing But Dust has airs of Faulknerian tragedy in full Argentinian heat. A vicious circle of cruelty and redemption, written with complete austerity. - Lire '[Sandrine Collette] has a gift. The gift to lose herself in unknown, inhospitable lands and, as if by magic, to bring forth from them the harshest bitterness and the most firmly hidden beauty.' - L'Express 'A claustrophobic drama placed in a setting both hostile and sublime.' - Biblioteca Magazine 'The novel's descriptions of nature are at times exalted, at others coldly descriptive-but in spite of the severity that dominates the setting, in Collette's prose, the young Rafael is a radiant hero.' - Telerama

Sandrine Collette was born in Paris in 1970. She divides her time between Nanterre, where she teaches philosophy and literature, and Burgundy, where she has a horse stud farm. She is the author of numerous novels. Nothing But Dust, winner of the Landerneau Prize for crime fiction, is her English language debut. Alison Anderson's translations for Europa Editions include novels by Selim Nassib, Amelie Nothomb, and Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt. She is the translator of The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Europa, 2008) and The Life of the Elves (Europa, 2016) by Muriel Barbery.

Praise for Nothing But Dust "A combination of a South American Western and a noir, Nothing But Dust has airs of Faulknerian tragedy in full Argentinian heat. A vicious circle of cruelty and redemption, written with complete austerity." --Lire "[Sandrine Collette] has a gift. The gift to lose herself in unknown, inhospitable lands and, as if by magic, to bring forth from them the harshest bitterness and the most firmly hidden beauty." --L'Express "A claustrophobic drama placed in a setting both hostile and sublime." --Biblioteca Magazine "The novel's descriptions of nature are at times exalted, at others coldly descriptive--but in spite of the severity that dominates the setting, in Collette's prose, the young Rafael is a radiant hero." --Telerama