Guatemalan writer Eduardo Halfon is a central voice in the new wave of literature from Central America and the Caribbean. The episodic and absurd novel The Polish Boxer moves between the university campus in Guatemala City to the Balkan of gypsys via the Nazis’ concentration camps. The traveler is a university teacher searching for a pianist who might be a gypsy. But he is also searching for his own family history: At the center of the story is his grandfather, with a number tattooed on his forearm. Not his own phone number, which he always struggled to remember, as the university teacher was told as a child, but his prison number from a concentration camp. Once, his grandfather’s life was saved by a Polish boxer. Hear Eduardo Halfon in conversation with writer and editor Mattis Øybø. The conversation took place on september 14th 2018.

 

LitHouse is a podcast from the House of Literature in Oslo, presenting adapted versions of lectures and conversations featuring international writers and thinkers. Music by Apothek.

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