Best of 2018: Kirkus Names The Right Intention

Kirkus Reviews has announced its Best Books of 2018, and includes Andrés Barba’s The Right Intention, translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman, in the categories for “Best Fiction in Translation” and “Best Short Fiction.”

In its review of The Right Intention, Kirkus writes:

These plots are deceptively simple. What’s not simple are the characters themselves, the ways that they struggle, and yearn, and fall down. Barba’s not eager to help them back up. There are no happy endings here, no false resolutions. Instead, we get the uneasy, unsettling mysteries we get in our everyday lives.

A gorgeous, fully realized collection in which each novella can be appreciated on its own as well as in concert with the others.

About The Right Intention:

Nothing is simple for the men and women in Andrés Barba's stories. As they go about their lives, they are each tested by a single, destructive obsession. A runner puts his marriage at risk while training for a marathon; a teenager can no longer stand the sight of meat following her parents' divorce; a man suddenly fixates on the age difference between him and his younger male lover. In four tightly wound novellas, Andrés Barba establishes himself as a master of the form.

About Andrés Barba:

Andrés Barba is the one the most lauded contemporary Spanish writers. He is the winner of the Herralde Prize and the author of twelve books, including Such Small Hands. His books have been translated into ten languages.