International praise for Ricardo Piglia:
. INTERNATIONAL RÓMULO 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 País
.
“Piglia demonstrates perfect mastery of his art. Nothing is there just for the sake of it.” — El País
“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. Piglia’s 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 today—not just in Argentina.”— El Cultural
“Argentine writer Piglia is the most perceptive contemporary reader of that nation’s literature and perhaps its best practitioner.”— SILVIA GIL DE CWILICH, Publishers Weekly, on Formas Breves
“Latin American noir at its best—and further evidence of Piglia’s remarkable versatility and skill.”— Kirkus Reviews on Money to Burn
“One of Latin America’s 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 Argentina’s 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
Translation & Introduction copyright © 2015 by Sergio Waisman
ISBN: 978-1-941920-17-6 (ebook)
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CONTROL NUMBER: 2015946455
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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 República Argentina.
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Cover design & typesetting by Anna Zylicz · annazylicz.com
Text set in Bembo, a typeface modeled on typefaces cut by Francesco Griffo for Aldo Manuzio’s printing of De Aetna in 1495 in Venice.
Distributed by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution.
Experience is a dim lamp that only lights the one who bears it.
LOUIS-FERDINAND CÉLINE
Contents
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Part II
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
WHAT’S IN A TITLE? FROM “BLANCO NOCTURNO” TO “TARGET IN THE NIGHT”
Ricardo Piglia was born in Adrogué, in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1941. One of Latin America’s 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, Piglia’s 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 Rómulo 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, Marías, and Vila-Matas.
Target in the Night is a kind of literary thriller set in the pampas of Argentina. Tony Durán, a Puerto Rican mulatto from New Jersey, arrives in a small town in the province of