The Trail We Leave

by Σουλιώτης Σωτήρης and Ruben Palma

"The Trail We Leave" received rave reviews in Denmark for its exploration of the lives of exiles in Scandinavia and the difficulty of living between two cultures (with sometimes comic, sometimes... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1931896097
• ISBN13: 9781931896092
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: Curbstone Press
• Length: 166 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Great Book

More than one year ago, I met Ruben Palma. It was at the BEA, Chicago, 2004, where he gave me his book: The Trail We Leave. Wonderful and surprising stories. Charming and original characters. Personal, but without narcissism. Spoke to me on a visceral level. Thanks very much! (5 or maybe 6 stars are for Isabel Allende, still my favourite Latin-American writer).

The trail we leave

"The trail we leave" is a book by the Chilean born Danish writer Rubén Palma, which continues the long and bright litterature tradition of Chile. In this novel Rubén Palma, with humor and nostalgy describes the process of trying to live in a new country and put up with all things life brings: love, sex, friendship, disillusion, hope and belief. And all this in foreign environment, which at the end appears to be as familiar as the native one: All people, in spite of different nations, cultures, religions and governments, have the same needs: to love, to be loved, to be estimated and accepted. Palma is not the only writer, who was forced to leave Chile for political reasons. José Luis Sepulveda, Isabel Allende and of course Pablo Neruda did the same, and continued their creative writing from the new countries, the exile, and created fantastic works of litterature, showing that Chile is the country of poets and writers, and giving a totally different view of South America, than the one prevailing in the media of the western world. Nowadays, many people are forced to leave their country too, for various reasons: economical, political, personal etc. Many of them are forced to chose the hard way, since the rich part of the world does not allow them to come there and to seek all these things every human being has the right to enjoy: material safety, political freedom, personal integrity, even family reunion in our days tends to be criminalized. A writer is always welcome because he or she has the talent of giving soul to the words. Many people do not have this gift, but they still are people. Rubén Palma's book shows it clearly. Read it and think twice, everytime you hear expressions like "Economical refugees", "Immigration is a danger for our society" and all that stuff.

In the lands of exile and immigration

Exile and immigration are supposed to be fruitful for literary creation. It is then surprising that there is so little literature focusing on that strange zone between what was left behind in the old land - and a new, often harsh and unreachable future in the arrival destination. Palma uses a firm and non sentimental narrative to present remarkable characters in these ten short stories. For example: Zapatito (Little Shoe), the humble and helpful ping pong genius in Copenhagen. Artemio Zandoval, the wannabe writer who discovers his true fate. Isabel, the little schoolgirl who is divided between a death and life, between a past in Playa Verde or a future in Vestervig. And The Angel, a dream like beauty, who kissed a young refugee welcome to Denmark. Adam and Shaha, the Chilean and the Bangladeshi, both wandering in cold and mysterious Helsinki, both lost in unsolvable love affairs. There is nostalgia and sadness, but also humour and irony. Some of the plots move unpredictably from one twist of fate to another, sometimes leaving the reader with a strong sense of absurdity. I would have loved being able to read the original text in Danish. But Danish is not the strong side of most people. The translation into English seemed excellent to me.