Such Small Hands

“Every once in a while a novel does not record reality but creates a whole new reality, one that casts a light on our darkest feelings. Kafka did that. Bruno Schulz did that. Now the Spanish writer Andrés Barba has done it with the terrifying Such Small Hands.” — Edmund WhiteLife changes at the orphanage the day seven-year-old Marina shows up. She is different from the other girls: at once an outcast & object of fascination. As Marina struggles to find her place, she invents a game whose rules are dictated by a haunting violence. Written in hypnotic, lyrical prose, alternating between Marina’s perspective & the choral we of the other girls, Such Small Hands evokes the pain of loss & the hunger for acceptance.°°° Lisa Dillman has won the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize, which honors a book-length literary translation into English from another modern European language, for her adroit translation of a chilling, almost gothic Spanish tale set in a girls’ orphanage.The international recognition for Dillman’s translation of Andrés Barba’s Such Small Hands is her second major award. A senior lecturer in Emory College’s Department of Spanish & Portuguese, Dillman won the 2016 Best Translated Book Award for her work on Yuri Herrera’s Signs Preceding the End of the World.She was even more captivated [than Barba's La Hermana de Katia] when she then read Such Small Hands, a novella that explores the inner world of children’s minds through the story of Marina, a 7-year-old girl spared in the car crash that kills both parents.Dillman was so taken with the precision of Barba’s words & tone that she translated the book into English without a contract, the only time she had taken on such a challenge.English-language publishers, though, were uninterested in Such Small Hands until Dillman won the Best Translated Book Award.Contest judges cited Dillman’s skill, going well beyond language to capture the [original] tone & style... A Guardian Best Book of 2017 “Every once in a while a novel does not record reality but creates a whole new reality, one that casts a light on our darkest feelings. Kafka did that. Bruno Schulz did that. Now the Spanish writer Andrés Barba has done it with the terrifying Such Small Hands ."— Edmund White Life changes at the orphanage the day seven-year-old Marina shows up. She is different from the other girls: at once an outcast and object of fascination. As Marina struggles to find her place, she invents a game whose rules are dictated by a haunting violence. Written in hypnotic, lyrical prose, alternating between Marina's perspective and the choral we of the other girls, Such Small Hands evokes the pain of loss and the hunger for acceptance. One of the Guardian Best Books of 2017“Every once in a while a novel does not record reality but creates a whole new reality, one that casts a light on our darkest feelings. Kafka did that. Bruno Schulz did that. Now the Spanish writer Andrés Barba has done it with the terrifying Such Small Hands.”—Edmund WhiteLife changes at the orphanage the day seven-year-old Marina shows up. She is different from the other girls: at once an outcast and object of fascination. As Marina struggles to find her place, she invents a game whose rules are dictated by a haunting violence. Written in hypnotic, lyrical prose, alternating between Marina's perspective and the choral we of the other girls, Such Small Hands evokes the pain of loss and the hunger for acceptance. "Life changes at the orphanage the day seven-year-old Marina shows up. She is different from the other girls: at once an outcast and object of fascination. As Marina struggles to find her place, she invents a game whose rules are dictated by a haunting violence"--Back cover Shirley Jackson meets The Virgin Suicides, set at an all-girls orphanage