3 Review(s)

The most distinctive thing about the Gamal sisters is that they are, essentially, indistinguishable (except for a modest mole). The twin spinsters spend their time trying to mask any perceptible differences they have, while working hard at their thriving tailoring business in a small town in rural northern Mexico. When? Thirty years ago? Fifty years ago? Who can say the world seems not to intrude on Ocampo over much. Gloria and Constitucion take an almost perverse delight in confusing people about which one is which. But then a suitor enters the picture, and one of the sisters decides that she doesn't want to live a life without romance and all the good things that come with it. The ensuing competition between the sisters brings their relationship to the breaking point - until they come up withan ingenious solution that carries this buoyant farce to its tender and even liberating conclusion. Suffused with the tension between our desire for union and our desire for independence, One Out of Two; is a giddy and comic fable by one of the giants of contemporary Latin American literature. About the Author Daniel Sada was born in Mexicali, Mexico, in 1953, and died in 2011, in Mexico City. Considered by many to be the boldest and most innovative writer in Spanish of his generation, he published eight volumes of short stories, nine novels and three volumes of poetry. He has been awarded numerous prizes including the Herralde Prize for Almost Never;. Just hours before he died, he was awarded Mexico's most prestigious literary award, the National Prize for Arts and Sciences for Literature. Katherine Silver is an award-winning translator whose recent translations include works by Horacio Castellanos Moya and César Aira. She is the director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre and lives in Berkeley, California.