A school assistant in Buenos Aires’ most prestigious state school, Maria Teresa Cornejo’s job is to keep the students in line. Suspecting that some of them are smoking in the school toilets, Maria Teresa takes to spying on them urinate – an activity she gets pleasure from listening to. Found out by her supervisor Senor Biasutto, she is not fired but forced into sexual collusion with him.
In this society all appears fair and liberal but within there is brutal repression and the teachers including Señor Biasutto draw up black-lists of candidates for torture. As tense and uncompromising as a novel by Elfriede Jelinek, SCHOOL FOR PATRIOTS Main Edition powerfully shows how in a dictatorship the political and the sexual interact.
Editorial Reviews
Review
A new generation of Argentinian writers, Martin Kohan and Rodrigo Fresan in the forefront, are showing that they are the worthy successors of Borges, Sabato and Bioy Casares ― Le Devoir
As in his fine boxing novel,
Seconds Out, Kohan narrates this story in a detached and punctilious style … his depiction of the psychological effects of tyranny is chillingly convincing. — David Evans ― FT Published On: 2012-06-23
Uneasy reading with a creepy atmosphere throughout. — Alastair Mabbott ―
Herald Published On: 2012-07-23
An eloquent reminder that freedom cannot ever be taken for granted. ―
Morning Star Published On: 2012-09-01
A brilliant and chilling study of authoritarianism, repression and surveillance from this Argentinean master of microscopic observation ―
New Internationalist Published On: 2012-10-01
Book Description
Set during the time of the Falklands War – a shocking exposure of the moral degradation that contaminated institutions of Argentinian society
About the Author
Martin Kohan was born in 1967 in Buenos Aires, where he now lives. He is a novelist and writer of essays including one on Walter Benjamin. He teaches in Patagonia at the University of Trelew. A previous novel, Seconds Out[9781846686375], was published by Serpent’s Tail in 2010.
SCHOOL FOR PATRIOTS Main Edition is translated by Nick Caistor
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