IT WOULD BE NIGHT IN CARACAS
Karina Sainz Borgo
Translated from the Spanish by Elizabeth Bryer
HarperVia
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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London SE1 9GF
This eBook first published in Great Britain by HarperVia in 2019
Copyright © Karina Sainz Borgo 2019
English translation copyright © Elizabeth Bryer 2019
Cover design by Stephen Brayda
Cover images © Carnation and Gentian Ehret, Georg Dionysius [1710-70], Victoria & Albert Museum /Bridgman Images/Meredith Adelaide/Stocksy Unites
Karina Sainz Borgo asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins
Source ISBN: 9780008359911
Ebook Edition © October 2019 ISBN: 9780008359935
Version: 2019-09-26
To the women and men who came before me.
And to those who will come after.
Because all stories about the ocean are
political, and each of us
is searching for a land to call home.
Ay, nothing can intimidate you, poet,
Not even the wind in the wires …
Lift your head
But may the words you write
Make sense.
—YOLANDA PANTIN,
“The Pelvic Bone”
They willed me bravery. I wasn’t brave.
—JORGE LUIS BORGES,
“Remorse”
translated by Willis Barnstone
I too was reared, like thee, in exile.
—SOPHOCLES
translated by F. Storr
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph