Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Maren Wiederhold
Categories
Biography, Literature & Literary studies

LOS ESCORPIONES

Sara Barquinero

The Scorpions is a novel about angst and methods people employ to escape it, with a particular focus on suicide, addiction (to drugs, videogames, the internet, love), and conspiratorial thinking. It is also a tale of loneliness and faith. v

The text centers on a conspiracy theory that I invented myself, which encompasses a panoply of other, real conspiracy theories (i.e., urban legends that exist in the actual world), such as the Polybius creepypasta; the sinister background music in Lavender Town in the first edition of Pokémon; MK-Ultra; control of governments and big business through hypnosis, subliminal music and messages; experimentation, torture, or cannibalism of the civilian population by economic elites; freemasonry; and an endless list of other theories that see connections everywhere you look. The protagonists, Sara (25 years old at the beginning of the novel) and Thomas (33) both independently get caught up in that conspiracy theory. As both have experienced traumatic events and are uneasy about their lives, they end up believing that there's some truth to the conspiracy; they join forces to find out just how correct it is.

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Book Published 2024-02-22 by LUMEN

Comments

It is one of those works that justifies why we continue reading novels.

Its characters sink into hell narrated with a mastery befitting a gifted writer.

Los Escorpiones is, in short, a masterful and monumental hyper-novel that has to become a phenomenon: it has everything to do so, but, above and beyond the magnetic plot, so successful, what convinces is its extraordinary literary greatness.

Barquinero has written a colossal novel.

The novel that has generated the most anticipation in the publishing world in recent months. [...] An ambitious literary work that leaves a lasting impression, with its own distinct voiceintelligent and philosophicalthat aims to go beyond what's typically expected from its genre.

The first contender for book of the year in 2024.

One of the best novels to be published so far in the 21st century. [...] And of course, the fact that the author has written such an immensely ambitious and courageous (and, to a large extent, successful) book at her age only makes it even more astonishing.

A reading experience that obsesses, unsettles and drags the reader to the end.

One of the most ambitious novels in contemporary Spanish literature.

An astonishing visual and artistic mastery, with a freedom of style, techniques, and methods that elevate the book into a genius experiment by a writer skilled in depicting broken intimacies. [...] A brilliant, intriguing, and convincingly eccentric mind.

The most ambitious Spanish novel in years. Barquinero's anhedonia and escapism belong alongside the greatest moments in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest or the novels of Don DeLillo, with echoes of Roberto Bolaño's 2666 and Ottessa Moshfegh, Mariana Enríquez, and Michel Houellebecq.

Somewhere between David Foster Wallace and the fantastic horror of Mariana Enriquez, the philosopher and writer weaves a compelling story, grappling with the same issues that resonate with her readers.

The promising expectations are amply confirmed with this ambitious novel in the line of the well assimilated influence of Foster Wallace, Roberto Bolaño or Michel Houellebecq.

The novel of a generation.

An unavoidable success. Barquinero's maturity is astounding. I believe in this book so much, I can't help but applaud. [...] Impossible to ignore.

A page-turner that blends thriller and horror, paying tribute to authors like Mariana Enriquez and Stephen King. [...] Sara Mesa effortlessly links her own name to the Dan Brown-esque bestseller without breaking a sweat, all while writing with feverish, uninhibited flair. [...] And if anyone were to suggest a connection to Cervantes, I wouldn't argue with them.