Ways of Going Home | Granta

  • Published: 03/10/2013
  • ISBN: 9781847086273
  • 129x20mm
  • 160 pages

Ways of Going Home

Alejandro Zambra

Translated by Megan McDowell

A young boy plays hide and seek in the suburbs of Santiago, unaware that his neighbours are becoming entangled in the brutality of Pinochet’s regime. Then one night a mysterious girl appears in his neighbourhood and makes a life-changing request.

Zambra is one of the writers of my generation that I most admire. Never a wasted word. Never a false note. His is an utterly unique voice, one I go back to again and again

Daniel Alarcón, author, Lost City Radio

I've found myself rereading, trying to work out this short novel's intricate structure of gaps and holes

Adam Thirlwell, Books of the Year, New Statesman

Complex yet sophisticated, the novel places Zambra at the spearhead of a new Chilean fiction. [He] weaves some of the continent's most difficult historical themes into an exciting modern art form

Mina Holland, Observer

The Author

Alejandro Zambra was born in Santiago, Chile in 1975. He is the author of two books of poems, Bahía Inútil and Mudanza; a collection of essays, No leer; and three novels, Bonsái, which was awarded a Chilean Critics Award for best novel, The Private Lives of Trees, and Ways of Going Home, which was awarded the Altazor Prize, selected by The National Book Council as the best Chilean novel published during 2012, and won an English Pen Award. He was selected as one of Granta‘s Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists and was elected to the Bogotá39 list.

More about the author →

The Translator

Megan McDowell is the recipient of a 2020 Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among other awards, and has been short- or longlisted four times for the International Booker Prize. Her most recent translated books is Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez. She lives in Santiago, Chile

Photograph © Camila Valdés

More about the translator →

From the Same Author

Alejandro Zambra on Granta.com

Essays & Memoir | Granta 159

Blue-Eyed Muggers

Alejandro Zambra

‘At every protest, when it was time to yell at the cops, I remembered my father and felt a turbulent emotion.’

Memoir by Alejandro Zambra on his father and his son.

Fiction | Granta 134

Reading Comprehension: Text No. 2

Alejandro Zambra

‘Which of the following famous phrases best reflects the meaning of the text?’

Essays & Memoir | Granta 134

Searching for Pavese

Alejandro Zambra

‘Something’s gone awry with this article. My intention was to remember, in his birthplace, a writer I admire, and it’s clear that my admiration has waned.’