Umami
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Umami
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Narrated by:
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Karina Fernandez
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Written by:
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Laia Jufresa
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Sophie Hughes - translator
About this listen
It started with a drowning.
Deep in the heart of Mexico City, where five houses cluster around a sun-drenched courtyard, lives Ana, a precocious 12-year-old still coming to terms with the mysterious death of her little sister years earlier. Over the rainy, smoggy summer, she decides to plant a vegetable garden in the courtyard, and as she digs the ground and plants her seeds, her neighbors in turn delve into their pasts.
As the ripple effects of grief, childlessness, illness and displacement saturate their stories, secrets seep out, and questions emerge: who was my wife? Why did my mom leave? Can I turn back the clock? And how could a girl who knew how to swim drown?
Using five voices to tell the singular story of life in an inner-city mews, Umami is a quietly devastating novel of missed encounters, missed opportunities, missed people and those who are left behind. Compassionate, surprising, funny and inventive, it deftly unpicks their stories to offer a darkly comic portrait of contemporary Mexico, as whimsical as it is heart-wrenching.
Laia Jufresa was born in Mexico City, grew up in the cloud forest of Veracruz and spent her adolescence in Paris. In 2001 she returned to Mexico City and discovered she didn't know how to cross a street. She's been writing fiction ever since. Laia's work has been featured in several anthologies and magazines, such as Letras Libres, Pen Atlas, Words Without Borders and McSweeney's, and she was named one of the most outstanding young writers in Mexico as part of the project Mexico20. In 2015 she was invited by the British Council to be the first ever International Writer in Residence at the Hay Festival of Literature. She currently lives in Cologne, Germany.
©2016 Laia Jufreza (P)2016 Audible, LtdWhat listeners say about Umami
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 2018-08-23
makes me feel feelings
Let me start by saying that this was a beautiful book. I have read dozens of books on audible, and this is my first time writing a review.
Some things I would say to anyone considering reading this book:
1. The translator is amazing. I think she deserves a lot of the credit for how great this book is.
2. This book has major themes of grief.
3. It can be challenging to keep all the characters straight. The fact that it goes in reverse chronological order adds difficulty as well. I drew a diagram to keep track of the family tree and the relationships between characters.
4. The author was very skilled at choosing when not to say things. She didn't rush or do cheap cliffhangers, but she still managed to sustain suspense.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mrs. Mac
- 2018-07-04
Wow!
Karina Fernandez delivers a pitch perfect performance. Loved it! Will “rewind” and listen again in six months or so.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Komal
- 2018-05-06
lost in translation
I get the sense that much of my struggle with this book was a deficiency in the translation and narration. little things like gender wrong threw me in trying to follow the story, or was the wife husband speaking of homosexual relationships? the oft wrong pronunciation live/life while would never be mentioned in face to face communications is just not acceptable in professional narration.
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1 person found this helpful