Sickness

Ernesto Duran is convinced he is sick. It becomes an obsession far exceeding hypochondria, and when Dr Andres Miranda gives up responding to his letters and e-mails, Duran resolves to stalk him. The fixation has its own creeping effect on Karina, the hospital secretary, who cannot resist becoming involved. Meanwhile Dr Miranda is coming to terms with a tragedy of his own: his father has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and yet the doctor - the son - finds it im-possible to tell him. He hopes that by taking his father on a trip to Isla Margarita, where they once went when he was a child, he might be able to reveal the truth. The nature of sickness as experienced by two individuals provides the backbone to this tender, thoughtful and refined novel. The Sickness is profound and philosophical, and yet written with an agility that expresses the tragedy, but also the comedy of life itself. A brilliantly achieved first novel.

Alberto Barrera Tyszka, poet and novelist, is well known in Venezuela for his Sunday column in the newspaper El Nacional. He co-wrote the internationally bestselling and critically acclaimed Hugo Chavez (2007), the first biography of the Venezuelan president. The Sickness won the prestigious Premio Herralde. Margaret Jull Costa has translated many Portuguese, Spanish and Latin American writers, amongst them Jose Saramago, Mario de Sa-Carneiro and Jose Regio. She was joint-winner of the Portuguese Translation Prize in 1992, and won the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1997.