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An Orphan World book cover
An Orphan World
2016
First Published
3.77
Average Rating
220
Number of Pages

In a run-down neighbourhood, in an unnamed seaside city with barely any amenities, a father and son struggle to keep their heads above water. Rather than being discouraged by their difficulties and hardship, they are spurred to come up with increasingly outlandish plans for their survival. Even when a terrible, macabre event rocks the neighbourhood’s bar district and the locals start to flee, father and son decide to stay put. What matters is staying together. This is a bold poignant text that interplays a very tender father-son relationship while exposing homosexuality and homophobia with brutal honesty. With delicate lyricism and imagery, Caputo is extremely original and creative producing a tale that harmoniously balances violence, discrimination, love, sex and defiancé, demonstrating that the he is a storyteller of great skill. An Orphan World is about poverty, and the resourceful ways in which people manage to confront it. At the same time, it is a reflection about the body as a space of pleasure and violence. Perhaps above all else, An Orphan World is a brutally honest love letter between a father and son.

Avg Rating
3.77
Number of Ratings
606
5 STARS
27%
4 STARS
36%
3 STARS
26%
2 STARS
8%
1 STARS
3%
goodreads

Author

Giuseppe Caputo
Giuseppe Caputo
Author · 3 books
Giuseppe Caputo was born in Barranquilla, Colombia, in 1982. He studied creative writing at New York University and at the University of Iowa. Also at Iowa, he specialised in queer and gender studies. An Orphan World is his début novel, and earned Caputo a place as part of the 2017 Hay Festival’s Bogotá 39 list of best Latin American writers under 40. He is also the author of several books of poems including Garden of Meat, The Cage Man and Jesus’ Nativities, and of a second novel which remains unpublished to date. He is a contributor to Arcadia magazine and El Tiempo newspaper. After being Cultural Director of the Bogotá International Book Festival for many years, Caputo now teaches creative writing at the Instituto Caro Cuervo in Bogotá.
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