A Father Is Born
The moving story of a man becoming a father, written by the winner of the 2009 Alfaguara Award.
"I am delighted that we are together, my son, becoming what we will both be."
A man awaits his son’s birth. Captivated, he follows the mother’s pregnancy, imagining the child that will transform his house, his language, his relationship, and his family history. For a year, he annotates the memorable first steps leading the three of them into these new existential situations: being a father, a mother, a son; three different characters in a universal story, told in newly born words. A situation further complicated when the child begins speaking and articulating his world.
A Father Is Born is a lyrical tale that resonates both on intimate and collective levels. Its understanding of fatherhood faces masculinity with the miracle of life and its incessant rereading of the present. In a time that redefines traditionally attributed roles, A Father Is Born accepts Anne Waldman’s invitation: "Tell the man to give up tumult for the while / To wonder at the sight of baby’s beauty." But it is also, and above all, a love statement.
Andrés Neuman (1977) was selected as one of Granta’s "Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists" and was included on the Bogotá-39 list. He is the author of numerous novels, short stories, poems, aphorisms, and travel books, including Traveler of the Century, Talking to Ourselves, The Things We Don’t Do, and Fracture. His works have been translated into twenty-two languages.
Robin Myers is a poet, translator, essayist, and 2023 NEA Translation Fellow. Her latest translations include Last Date in El Zapotal by Mateo García Elizondo (Charco Press), A Strange Adventure by Eva Forest (Sternberg Press), What Comes Back by Javier Peñalosa M. (Copper Canyon Press); The Brush by Eliana Hernández-Pachón (Archipelago Books); and Bariloche (Open Letter Books) and Love Training (Deep Vellum Publishing), both by Andrés Neuman.
