Reviews for Nueva Madre en Español

Editorial Cerbero’s Spanish edition of “The New Mother” (translated by Arrate Hidalgo) has been out for a few months now, and Nueva Madre‘s reception by its Spanish readership has been supremely heartening. The Goodreads responses—which I’ve never felt a desire to read for my publications in English, but discover I’m fascinated by now that I’m in translation—have been consistently positive. My most common reason for signing into Twitter lately has been to see if Arrate has flagged a new review for my attention.

The first one I can recall seeing was David Pierre’s review on his personal site. Machine translation informs me that he recommends the book, and says, “Nueva madre is a short science fiction novel that, in a masterly way, poses a future that seems odd to us, but that could destroy us as a society.”

Miriam Beizana at A Librería is not a frequent reader of SF, and seems skeptical of novella-length fiction, but seems to have enjoyed Nueva Madre despite those reservations. She says something that Google thinks means:

I have read many precious short novels that I will recommend ad nauseam. Virginia Woolf is an expert in this format, I could also quote The Hours of Michael Cunningham; or in a more indie look There are no fair men left in Sodoma by J. Font and the wonder of O derradeiro book by Emma Olsen by Berta Dávila. I can not avoid making a comparison between these titles and Yabarí , Mud or Chlorophilia . While the first ones remain as a reminiscence in my head, the seconds have a more fleeting life in my memories.

I have to say that with New Mother , maybe, maybe, I have found in this little book what I hope to find in a novel of these characteristics. Noting, that yes, that the 187 pages indicated in the technical sheet would be about 100 in a more common A5 size, which the achievement is even greater.

Ester Barroso Jaime wrote a review that I actually have a human translation of, thanks to my mother posting it on Facebook and getting a reply from a bilingual friend. They write:

Not all writers are so brave when it comes to writing, but Fischer is in The New Mother. With mastery, the author puts the finger on the sore spot, he makes the reader wonder and question things; he leads him, page after page, to think about the possibility that he has created. To what we give for granted and normal, he gives it a whole turn demonstrating that the meaning of “normal”, in any field, is arbitrary. And what is worse: the things that humans are capable of doing in order to maintain that structure called “normal”. Who are the monsters then? The “normal” ones who prefer to walk on the safe side or those who suffer from this pathology? Survival in its pure state is served.

It’s lovely to see a new group of readers engage with my story. Gracias a todos ustedes que compartieron sus reacciones a Nueva Madre.