Description:
A sly and playful novel about the many faces we all have.
Brief description:
Sònia Hernández was born in 1976, in Terrassa. Granta named her one of their 'Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists' in 2010. A writer and critic, she has contributed to many publications.
Review Quotes:
"This quirky coming-of-age novel by a celebrated young Spanish writer centers on a tender mother-daughter relationship."
--New York Times 'New & Noteworthy'
"[B]eguiling ... the various characters' deceptions are unveiled skillfully by Hernández as she distorts the reader's sense of reality. This novel is more than it seems."
--Publishers Weekly
"A narratively ambitious reflection on art, beauty, motherhood, and identity ... A conceptually fascinating book."
--Kirkus Reviews
"With [Prosopagnosia], Sònia Hernández cements her place as one of the most individual voices of her generation."
--La Vanguardia
"In this warm, lively, and intellectual novel, Hernández's greatest achievement is allowing the protagonist to release her trauma in a way that is both simple and true."
--Santos Sanz Villanueva, El Cultural
"One of the best writers of her generation."
--Inés Martín Rodrigo, ABC
"A novel of our times that explores the difficulty of constructing oneself as a person and the chaos of how things seem to happen to us."
--Lluís Satorras, Babelia
"A tale of the conflict between reality and deception, and how the many forms of exile and solitude come together. A beautiful, enigmatic novel."
--Enrique Vila-Matas, El País
"A reflection on false appearances, assumed identities, the need to invent other lives for ourselves, and the need for art itself."
--Ángel Ortín Pascual, Heraldo de Aragón
"As structured and well-articulated as the paintings that inspired it."
--Isabel Gómez Melenchón, La Vanguardia
"[D]elivers a serious reflection on the purpose and meaning of literary fiction."
--Domingo Ródenas, El Periódico
"For Hernández, plot is just an excuse to articulate her own original ideas about beauty, identity, and exile, and this makes each of her books a declaration of ethical and aesthetic principles. This novel is not a means but an end in itself: the materialization of her most important themes from life and literature."
--Liliana Muñoz, Criticismo
"Sònia Hernández' writing is unsettling and unconventional, marked by a complete independence from the dominant trends of contemporary novels in Spanish."
--Santos Sanz Villanueva, El Mundo
"Hernández offers many insights into the value of experience, of travel as personal discovery, and the difficulty of explaining ourselves in our own words. A novel of reflection."
--Suárez Lafuente, La Nueva España