The Dinner Guest (El comensal)

Longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker International Prize

The Dinner Guest is Gabriela Ybarra’s prizewinning literary debut: a singular autobiographical novel piecing together the kidnap & murder of her grandfather by terrorists, reflecting on the personal impact of private pain & public tragedy.

“A seamless blend of art, politics, & private life.”—NPR

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The story goes that in my family there's an extra dinner guest at every meal. He's invisible, but always there. He has a plate, glass, knife & fork. Every so often he appears, casts his shadow over the table, & erases one of those present.

The first to vanish was my grandfather.

In 1977, three terrorists broke into Gabriela Ybarra's grandfather's home, & pointed a gun at him in the shower. This was the last time his family saw him alive, & his kidnapping played out in the press, culminating in his murder. Ybarra first heard the story when she was eight, but it was only after her mother's death, years later, that she felt the need to go deeper & discover more about her family's past.

The Dinner Guest is a novel with the feel of documentary nonfiction. It connects two life-changing events—the very public death of Ybarra’s grandfather, & the more private pain as her mother dies from cancer & Gabriela cares for her. Devastating & luminous, the book is an investigation, marking the arrival of a talented new voice in international fiction.

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Gabriela Ybarra was born in Bilbao in 1983. She currently lives in Madrid, where she writes & works in social media analysis. The Dinner Guest is her first novel & was published to critical acclaim in Spain, where it won the Euskadi Literature Prize 2016. Her work has appeared in publications such as El País, ABC & Revista Eñe.

Natasha Wimmer is the translator of nine books by Roberto Bolaño, including The Savage Detectives & 2666.