Sara

Standing in the door of the apartment, Sara supervises so that everything goes according to plan. A few meters away, while awaiting the elevator, Estela adjusts her purse and looks at her without haste. Ciao, Sara says, and she raises a hand, as if waving a little Chilean flag. Indeed, a celebration; my only daughter, with her nasty character and all, is finally leaving home. No more screaming, no more arguments or fights.
The previous afternoon, among the boxes and bags filled with clothing, Estela had insisted on spending the last night together. For her thirty-five years, she was overreacting, Sara thought, and continued to think the same this morning, around eleven, when she ran into her in the kitchen roaming about in her pajamas, searching for the ugly spotted cup, a gift from a patient for Nurse’s Day. She saw her there plump and lethargic; it reminded her of a snail.

Sara is a woman in her sixties, recently retired, who is trying to decipher her past and decide the next steps in her life. After decades of working for a multinational company as a secretary and living with her daughter for 35 years, she believes the time has come to finally break free and make her own life. However, the arrival of a prosperous, beautiful, young neighbour, the ailments of an ageing body, loneliness, various projects that fizzle out and her own actions will twist the protagonist’s plans until they lead her into her darkest areas.
A secondary character in every sense of the word, in whose vicissitudes the author manages to immerse us, thanks to an accurate and devastating analysis that highlights the shortcomings of today’s society towards people who are beginning to age.

Key points

• Award-winning book that has received very good specialised literary criticism and has already sold out two editions in Chile.
• Acquired by the Chilean State for the catalogue of public libraries.
• Included in the bibliography of complementary reading in secondary schools.
• Published in Argentina by Editorial Caballo Negro in 2023.

Maivo Suárez

2022 – Finalist I Latin American Short Story Competition Marta Brunet, University of Chile
2018 – Finalist Children’s Literary Contest Julio C. Cobas, Ecuador
2017 – Juegos Literarios Gabriela Mistral Municipal Award
2013, 2020 – Finalist Santiago en 100 Palabras Contest
2019 – First Place 16th Gonzalo Rojas Short Stories Competition
2016 – Finalist in Teresa Hamel Contest, Chilean Writers Society