Bonsai A Novel

Available for the first time from Penguin in a beautifully rendered new translation, international literary sensation Alejandro Zambra’s emotionally engrossing and brilliantly distilled first novel—a “wrenching account of failed young love . . . a total knockout” (Junot Díaz) Bonsai is the story of Julio and Emilia, two young Chilean students who, seeking truth in great literature, find each other instead. Like all young couples, they lie to each other, revise themselves, and try new identities on for size, observing and analyzing their love story as if it’s one of the great novels they both pretend to have read. As they shadow each other throughout their young adulthoods, falling together and drifting apart, Zambra spins a formally innovative, metafictional tale that brilliantly explores the relationship among love, art, and memory.