Selkies House Limited

"A novel-manifesto, enraged and sublime"-Olivia de Lamberterie, Elle"We have known from the start that Wauters' writing would be the voice of humanity."-Michel Zumkir, Le Carnet et les Instants Armed with the inflection of a poet, Wauters unfurls the moments that everyday people who have been silenced by injustice find their voice and speak out. Their words become weapons against the excesses of an era that has evolved to threaten our humanity. Teenagers leave their city estates for the freedom of the coast where they are arrested at the beach for disorder; care home residents escape under a starlit sky and return to the embrace of their memories, clear as the night air; young mothers rage at an arrogant world that has left a climate under threat and the future of their children at risk; a young farm boy addresses the neighbour whose privilege and interference has resulted in a ferocious beating that has left his brother deaf and disfigured . . . Human contradictions link each of these stories set in a polarised world that demands we choose sides. Acting alone or in groups, Wauters' protestors struggle to find sense where none exists, and together with their antagonists they breathe, hesitate, suffer, and doubt. Strangled by fury and the hopelessness of their predicament, they resolve against logic and expectation to step forward and fight for change. With the award-winning stories in The Museum of Contradictions, Wauters has captured our zeitgeist. In their defining moment he gives voice to the many.

"A time of polarization, a time when we were called upon to inhale the air of the nation, a time when it mattered who belonged to which ethnic group. But our hero wants to belong to his own, special, rockabilly nation, founded on music, freedom, the freedom of the spirit, the freedom to decide, to choose his clothes, his hairstyle. . ."-Boris Liješevic, theatre director of 'Blue Moon', the playCarli left his mountain village and his past to study agronomy in Zagreb. Failing miserably his commitment to most endeavours is falling into question. Nobody, however, can surpass the time he spends on his hair and his music. Most days Carli whiles away the hours grooming his pompadour. Even crossing the street, he pays attention to the direction of the wind so that his quiff, his pride and joy, is not displaced. And most evenings he spends with friends in the city's underground clubs from which the sound of rockabilly music echoes through cobbled streets and into the night. When he meets the red-haired Eli, a street-smart city girl, Carli is thunderstruck, and an unlikely relationship begins. Eli quotes the lyrics of Leonard Cohen and has little time for rockabilly music. She is an A-student, competent. When news of impending fatherhood sparks an existential crisis, Eli is there to keep him from the precipice. However, the ominous signs of Yugoslavia's instability become more apparent as Carli's downward spiral intensifies. Sinister figures from past decades return to manufacture discontent and the facade of peaceful co-existence begins to crack under the weight of history until a precise moment of witness when the future of a generation and of a country comes to a thunderous halt. "This story about the disappearance and transformation of the Serbs of Zagreb-a story that the scoundrels would never dare tell, even if Blue Moon were awarded every Croatian literary prize-has been told with unusual care, touching attention and a sense of responsibility; the responsibility of a writer for a story that must be told, no matter the price for telling it."-Miljenko Jergovic

In the heat of Barcelona beats the pulse of a new underclass. Once the bright future of Venezuela, a cohort disappeared after the country's surreal collapse. From savagery young lives emerge and take flight on a different continent: friends prevailing, there before the world but under its radar. Escaping hunger and worse in Caracas, they pedal the streets of a new city as fast-food delivery riders, prostitutes and dealers, scratching their living at speed. Navigating punishing hills and dark alleys at risk, they are visible in fleeting moments on a doorstep, a corner, or weaving through rush-hour traffic. Savages to the local population, they become hypnotic fireflies here, discovering identity, surviving insult, questioning gender, finding love, trying to forget, or is it to remember, but alive and supporting each other through stories of fear, horror, laughter, and hope. Maria Eugenia pedals eighty-four frenetic hours a week, her body broken and bleeding, rapid orders pushing through to her phone that rings nonstop. She has kept in touch with Cheo who looks forward to the arrival of his girlfriend from Venezuela, but he has yet to tell her he is married to Andres. Nataly has turned to prostitution only to fall in love with Sasha, her mysterious Russian client. Meanwhile, El Loco tries to establish his reputation as a drug dealer in Madrid on the back of a clouded past in Caracas where From Savagery opens in a funeral home, and at the very moment Angelica realises she can't afford her mother's burial. This generation comes alive through its language; it is as distinct as the friendship shared-crackling, proud, and without apology, a gust of fresh air carrying with it the spirit of a new life.