Elena Knows

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As Elena makes her way across town we catch glimpses of the past. We learn about her life with Rita. We see what a strain such an illness can become on not just the patient but the caregiver as well. Mother-daughter relationships are never a breeze and no less so under such circumstances. What does it mean to be a parent once you have lost your child? We learn more about this debt that Elena is going to collect. Along the way, I felt that this was a cautionary tale. Never, ever should we assume that we know what anyone else is going through. Unless perhaps we walk along in their shoes for a time - much as we did with Elena on this day. We must defend our personal freedoms – they are not to be given away carelessly or taken from us so thoughtlessly. I can’t say anything more other than I believe this was brilliantly written! Please read this book! A bit of history on Pineiro, she was part of the activism that changed the abortion law in Argentina. In 2021 abortion became legal for the first time since 1886. She mostly known as a crime writer. She also was instrumental in the movement against femicide. I can't think of another novel that has so deeply and intimately drawn me into the experience of someone living with a debilitating illness. Elena is in a late stage of Parkinson's disease where every physical action is timed around when her pills can be taken as these allow her a limited amount of movement. In the interim periods her body refuses to respond to messages from her brain and, even with the pills, normal actions which we take for granted are an enormous struggle. This is especially problematic as Elena is determined to visit someone on this day to call in an old debt. Her daughter Rita was recently found hanging in the belfry of a church. Elena doesn't accept the police's conclusion that it was a suicide and is determined to uncover the mystery behind her daughter's death. We follow her journey as she discovers the truth behind this tragic event and, in the process, get a profound insight into the challenges of her daily existence. However, this isn't a story that's as miserable as it sounds. Elena isn't the nicest person - often with good reason. She's irascible, extremely rude to some people and has a keen sense of irony. So following her thoughts and reflections is often a darkly funny and entertaining experience, but it's also very moving and enlightening. All these elements make this a riveting, revelatory and brilliantly imaginative story.

In this way, crime and morality enter a convoluted space of complex intertwining. What could the real crime in this novel be, in the absence of one? Is it not, perhaps, that Father Juan – in the name of Christian morals – denominates Rita’s alleged suicide as a sin, and those unable to accept the harsh finality of death foolish? Is it not that Rita – herself defined by strict moral precepts, herself without child – insists on Isabel having her child, notwithstanding the latter’s certainty on wanting to proceed with abortion, and notwithstanding Rita’s complete ignorance on the matter of Isabel’s circumstances? the exploration of what we owe to each other, and especially of what women owe, what it means to be a mother and a daughter and if we have any choice in being either, was excellent and — to my experience — one of a kind. for twenty years you’ve believe something so different to what I believe. I’ve lived my life and you’ve lived yours, we’ve both constructed that past, that day, as if we weren’t both there in the same place at the same time.” chapter 2, section III. This idea is juxtaposed with the plight of Rita, who has to spend all her time caring for Elena. She does it because she loves her mother, even despite their frequent arguments and annoyances with each other, but the mental toll it takes is severe. There is not enough money for her to seek any outside assistance and here we also see how our own agency to our bodies and our lives is affected by our financial status. Elena Knows looks at all the ways outside influences are vying for possession of bodies and the costs of being the victim in these situations. Fatima Daas is a pseudonym, chosen to match her central character. She began writing fiction aged 14, and her talent was spotted in high-school writing workshops. She later took a creative writing master’s degree.

When I won the Clarín Alfaguara Prize for Thursday Night Widows, José Saramago and Rosa Montero were on the jury. At the party, after announcing I was the winner and amid all the excitement, Saramago told me: ‘Make sure you talk to Rosa because we wanted to tell you something about your text, and she’ll explain it better than me.’ After a while Saramago appeared again and repeated: ‘Did you speak to Rosa yet?’ And then again. Finally, after the catering and the champagne, I had the chance to talk to Rosa Montero, and she told me: ‘Review the text before you publish. We think that the novel should end before it does. You explain too much, you say things that should remain unsaid.’ And of course they were absolutely right! In my inexperience, I wanted to explain everything to the reader, out of fear they wouldn’t understand the text the way I wanted them to. That day I learned that you have to trust your readers; taking that risk brings great benefits to the text.

Let us pray for him, and for all the ships out at sea,” writes Sandro Veronesi, in both the opening and closing chapters of his novel The Hummingbird. Bookended like a call to prayer, Veronesi’s most acclaimed work, recently published in English, is a reflective and hopeful contemporary take on the Italian family saga, following Marco Carrera, a middle-class family man who manages to hover over the chaos of his life as winds of change threaten to blow him off course. Maybe that’s why Rita had been so ambivalent and cold towards her faith. Because she was raised by one fervent Catholic, and one who only pretended to be.” chapter 3 section II.Yes, Elena had a difficult relationship with her daughter Rita. Rita is her main caretaker. What they say to each other is painful. When Rita dies, Elena is hellbent on proving that Rita did not kill herself. She tells anyone who will listen that Elena loved Rita and Rita loved her. It may not have appeared that way, but they did love each other. Elena's grown daughter, Rita, was afraid of rain, afraid of storms. So Elena knows that Rita would never have gone to the church that day of her own volition. Rita never went to church when it rained. Yet, Rita is found there dead, hanging in the church belfry, an apparent - no, make that an obvious - suicide. So say the police. I found it explosive - breathless - and very exciting to read the sentences & dialogue. They are haunting, but brilliantly alive!

Individuals that Elena meets view her as a woman with a disability. When Elena is first diagnosed, Rita says to her, The tone of this book is grimmer than the only other Piñeiro I've read ( Betty Boo) and you definitely shouldn't go into this expecting any kind of crime novel. Readers who dislike a free-flow narrative without speech marks and which eases between thoughts, exposition and direct speech may want to be wary. Never isn’t a word that applies to our species, there are so many things that we think we’d never do and yet, when put in the situation, we do them.’ Some months ago her daughter Rita, aged 44, was found hanged in a church tower. Everyone is convinced it was suicide but "Elena knows" it can't be, as it was a stormy day and her daughter, with a strong phobia of lightning, never went close to the church building in such weather. Narrator Elena (who reminded me quite bit in stubbornness and demeanor to the main character of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk) struggling with Parkinson, is on a quest to find out the reason behind the death of her daughter.We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview. Like so many relationships, Elena and Rita’s relationship is complex. In one of many interactions Elena remembers a conversation with Rita: Amnesty International has a global campaign My Body My Rights to stop the control and criminalization of sexuality and reproduction. They also share facts on sexual and reproductive rights around the world.