Vicente Luis Mora - Digging a grave, Redo finds the body of a soldier. The next day, Redo uncovers two soldiers from an earlier time, perfectly preserved. This archaeological novel digs into the strata of the European soil, uncovering a long history of oppression, expropriation and erasure

 

Vicente Luis Mora, Centroeuropa, Trans. by

Rahul Bery. Peninsula Press, 2023

“Male, Prussian, Hussar soldier, frozen. That was the first body I found while digging in the frozen earth to bury my wife...”

At the dawn of the nineteenth century, European feudalism is starting to crumble. Newly widowed, Redo Hauptshammer arrives in a small Prussian town to claim a plot of arable land and the simple life of a freehold farmer. Digging a grave, Redo finds the body of a soldier. The next day, Redo uncovers two soldiers from an earlier time, perfectly preserved.

This archaeological novel digs into the strata of the European soil, uncovering a long history of oppression, expropriation and erasure. It contains the story of Redo’s mysterious life, and the great love at the heart of it, revealed in chapters of increasing length: as the bodies proliferate, the story gets more complicated. What will be excavated from the earth, and what will remain buried?

Audacious, playful and wickedly funny – in a bold yet lyrical translation by Rahul Bery – Centroeuropa cements Vicente Luis Mora’s reputation as one of Europe’s pre-eminent experimental writers, while introducing him to the English-speaking world.

‘Impeccable, from beginning to end.’ – El Pais

‘Mora embarks on a radical adventure in a Europe ravaged by wars and revolutions that has no reference in our current literature.’ – La Vanguardia