Baron Gets Big Debut
by Matthew Thornton -- Publishers Weekly, 5/30/2008 9:41:00 AM
Late yesterday afternoon, Carole Baron at Knopf prevailed in a two-day auction for a debut novel by Carolina De Robertis titled The Invisible Mountain, topping final bids from Dial, Bloomsbury, Scribner and Grand Central; Victoria Sanders sold world English rights in a deal certain to arouse interest at BEA. Set against the verdant but unforgiving Uruguayan landscape, the book is an epic family saga that spans nearly a century in the lives of generations of heroic females. Pajarita Firielli, the matriarch, is forced to be independent to survive, and she clings to her empowerment for her duration and passes this spirit along to her daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters, enabling them to persevere over institutional misogyny, dictatorial regimes and the family secrets that threaten to destroy them. In homage to the Latin fiction canon, De Robertis employs magic realism throughout the work. The author, whose work has appeared in ColorLines, The Virginia Quarterly Review and The Indiana Review, was raised in England, Switzerland and California by Uruguayan parents. She is at work on her second novel. Knopf plans to publish early in 2010.
