Piglia Ricardo - Target in the Night

International praise for Ricardo Piglia:

. INTERNATIONAL RMULO GALLEGOS NOVEL PRIZE, 2011

. NATIONAL CRITICS PRIZE, 2011

. THE BEST NOVEL IN SPANISH OF THE YEAR 2010, CHOSEN BY 55 CRITICS AND JOURNALISTS OF El Pas

.

Piglia demonstrates perfect mastery of his art. Nothing is there just for the sake of it. El Pas

Ricardo Piglia is an extremely important literary figure. He has inherited Borges quizzical intelligence, enthusiasm for the tireless exploration of literature and attraction to hidden depths. Piglias fictions trace inventive parabolas over the past nightmarish events of his country. The Independent

Ricardo Piglia, the rebel classic. J.A. MASOLIVER RODENAS, La Vanguardia

One of the sharpest minds on the latino-hispanic-american scene todaynot just in Argentina. El Cultural

Argentine writer Piglia is the most perceptive contemporary reader of that nations literature and perhaps its best practitioner. SILVIA GIL DE CWILICH, Publishers Weekly, on Formas Breves

Latin American noir at its bestand further evidence of Piglias remarkable versatility and skill. Kirkus Reviews on Money to Burn

One of Latin Americas most highly regarded novelists. Piglia brings into play a swirl of tales mixing dark truths with hallucinatory adventures. GWEN KIRKPATRICK, author of The Dissonant Legacy of Modernismo, on The Absent City

Piglia is Argentinas most important novelist, a compelling writer and committed intellectual who relentlessly deals with the complicated relationships between politics and fiction. And Sergio Waisman is an exceptionally gifted translator with a wonderful ear and eye for the reverberations of Spanish in English. FRANCINE MASIELLO, author of Between Civilization and Barbarism: Women, Nation, and Literary Culture in Modern Argentina, on The Absent City

ALSO AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH BY RICARDO PIGLIA:

The Absent City

translated by Sergio Waisman

Artificial Respiration

translated by Daniel Balderston

Assumed Name

translated by Sergio Waisman

Money to Burn

translated by Amanda Hopkinson

Deep Vellum Publishing

2919 Commerce St. #159, Dallas, Texas 75226

deepvellum.org @deepvellum

Deep Vellum Publishing is a 501C3

nonprofit literary arts organization founded in 2013.

Copyright 2010 by Ricardo Piglia

c/o Guillermo Schavelzon & Asoc., Agencia Literaria

www.schavelzon.com

Translation & Introduction copyright 2015 by Sergio Waisman

ISBN: 978-1-941920-17-6 (ebook)

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CONTROL NUMBER: 2015946455

Work published within the framework of SUR Translation Support Program of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship of the Argentinian Republic.

Obra subsidiada en el marco Programa SUR del

Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto de la Repblica Argentina.

Cover design & typesetting by Anna Zylicz annazylicz.com

Text set in Bembo, a typeface modeled on typefaces cut by Francesco Griffo for Aldo Manuzios printing of De Aetna in 1495 in Venice.

Distributed by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution.

Contents

Experience is a dim lamp that only lights the one who bears it.

LOUIS-FERDINAND CLINE

WHATS IN A TITLE? FROM BLANCO NOCTURNO TO TARGET IN THE NIGHT

Ricardo Piglia was born in Adrogu, in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1941. One of Latin Americas most important living writers, Ricardo Piglia is known for his sophisticated combination of formal experimentation and political and cultural engagement. The author of fourteen books of fiction and non-fiction, Piglias work has been translated, among others, into French, German, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Chinese, Arabic, Hungarian, and Portuguese, as well as English. Target in the Night was originally published in Spanish in 2010 as Blanco nocturno, and in 2011 it won the Rmulo Gallegos Award and the National Critics Prize, two of the most prestigious awards given to a single work of Spanish-language literature in the world. In 2015, Ricardo Piglia was awarded the Formentor Prize, which recognizes a lifetime contribution to literature, previously awarded to Borges, Beckett, Bellow, and Gombrowicz, and most recently Fuentes, Goytisolo, Maras, and Vila-Matas.

Target in the Night is a kind of literary thriller set in the pampas of Argentina. Tony Durn, a Puerto Rican mulatto from New Jersey, arrives in a small town in the province of Buenos Aires with a suitcase full of American dollars. All indications are that Durn comes in pursuit of two beautiful women, the Belladona sisters, whom he met in Atlantic City, and with whom he formed a hasty trio. But the Belladona sisters may not have been the real, or at least not the only, reason for Durn going to Argentina. A few weeks after Durns arrival in the small Argentine town, a murder ensues. Inspector Croce, the local, somewhat-rambling genius detective, investigates the crime. A writer from El Mundo, a newspaper in Buenos Aires, is sent to the remote area to cover the story; the journalist is Emilio Renzi, the authors well-known alter-ego figure, who appears in most of Piglias fictions.

As Target in the Night unfolds, the investigations by Croceand by Renziuncover a series of hidden associations that lead to further inquiry. The story involves a powerful local family, a corrupt public prosecutor, and the relationships that Inspector Croce and the investigative journalist Renzi have and develop with the town residents. The initial enigma drives the narrative, and the different storylines in the novel all hinge around the initial crime. But there is also a larger mystery that lies as if hidden beneath the town and the text. The mystery at the heart of Target in the Night is an actual mystery and a pretext for the telling of a complex family storywhich turns out, in many ways, to be the story of Argentina.

Experimenting with form, innovating with narrative, recounting gripping tales that revolve around a central plot, Target in the Night starts as a detective novel, and soon turns into much more than that. Piglia takes the genre of the detective story and transforms it into what can be called, using Piglias own term, paranoid fiction. Everyone in the novel is a suspect of a kind, everyone feels persecuted. In Piglias paranoid fiction, individuals are accused ofand some commitcrimes, but the category of a criminal no longer applies only to isolated individuals. Groups with power over other groups maneuver to conserve or gain more power through hidden as well as overt moves. No one understands what is happening, the clues and testimonies are contradictory, and suspicion is always in the air, because the versions of the story change with every point of view. As we follow Croce and Renzi through