by Agustín Fernández Mallo, translated from the Spanish by Thomas Bunstead
(Fitzcarraldo Editions, ISBN 9781910695029)
Reviewers are generally inured to the hyperbole of publishers, so, when the blurb to Nocilla Dream described it as ‘arborescently structured’, I sighed briefly and read on, only to find that the phrase is both literally and metaphorically accurate. Trees – specifically, one tree – are central to the book and the overlapping, incantatory narratives do resemble the form and spread of branches.
