A Luminous Republic : Book Review

Many thanks to HMHBooks for the complimentary copy of A Luminous Republic 

I had no idea what to expect when I picked up A Luminous Republic  yesterday. From the first word I was transported to the jungle city of San Cristóbal and the arrival of the children. ⁣
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No one knew where the 32 children came from and no one knew where they went at night. They spoke an indecipherable language. As they scavenged and stole and harassed people, they were initially a nuisance but then they turned violent and they needed to be stopped. ⁣

“...we too thought that our individual love for our children transformed them, that even blindfolded we’d recognize their voices from thousands of other children’s voices. And perhaps the inverse of that serves as confirmation: that the other children who slowly began occupying our streets were more or less indistinguishable versions of the same boy or girl, children who were ‘just like a hundred thousand other little boys’ and girls. Who we didn’t need. Who didn’t need us. And who, of course, had to be tamed.”

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The story alone is intriguing and kept me on the edge of my seat. But the language and insights into the human condition are brilliant, thoughtful and I read so many passages aloud to Rand. I rarely annotate or mark fiction and yet I was pulling out my pen and post-it notes. ⁣
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A Luminous Republic is poignant and philosophical and rather timely. It hit all the emotions—from fear to regret to decidedly uncomfortable with its apt observations. It’s size may be diminutive but its story and language are pertinent and important.

A Luminous Republic by Andrés Barba was first published in 2017 and translated into English and published by Mariner Books in April 2020.