![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Severina (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) (Paperback)

Staff Reviews
The ultimate book about working in a bookstore, and one of my favorite books of all time. Brilliantly sly, humorous and strange. A bookstore owner in Guatemala City is alternatingly menaced and seduced by an attractive shoplifter and her minder/boyfriend/grandfather. In the tradition of slim, unforgettable works of Latin American fiction like Pedro Paramo, Distant Star, or The Invention of Morel, but with an addictive, charming style that is all Rey Rosa’s own.
— From Chris's PicksDescription
“Right from the start I picked her for a thief, although that day she didn’t take anything. . . . I knew she’d be back,” the narrator/bookseller of Severina recalls in this novel’s opening pages. Imagine a dark-haired book thief as alluring as she is dangerous. Imagine the mesmerized bookseller secretly tracking the volumes she steals, hoping for insight into her character, her motives, her love life. In Rodrigo Rey Rosa’s hands, this tale of obsessive love is told with almost breathless precision and economy. The bookstore owner is soon entangled in Severina’s mystery: seductive and peripatetic, of uncertain nationality, she steals books to actually read them and to share with her purported grandfather, Señor Blanco.
In this unsettling exploration of the alienating and simultaneously liberating power of love, the bookseller’s monotonous existence is rocked by the enigmatic Severina. As in a dream, the disoriented man finds that the thin border between rational and irrational is no longer reliable. Severina confirms Rey Rosa’s privileged place in contemporary world literature.
About the Author
Chris Andrews teaches at the University of Western Sydney and is a prize-winning poet. He has translated the works of numerous Latin American authors, among them Roberto Bolaño and César Aira.
Praise For…
“In this short novel [Rey Rosa] opts to tell a different kind of tale, abounding with restlessness and compulsion. The narrator becomes obsessed with the title character, a young woman with a penchant for stealing from the bookstore he owns. His discovery of her motives sets in motion a series of interconnected musings on the nature of storytelling, truth, and fiction itself.”—Tobias Carroll, New York magazine
— Publishers Weekly
— Complete Review
— Zyzzyva
— Seeing the World Through Books