Short novel. Juvenile
Editorial Sudamericana. Buenos Aires, August 1997. 5th edition, 2006. 96 pages

Stefano is a bildungsroman, it is the story of an inner and outer journey experienced by a teenager who, at the beginning of the twentieth century, in the period between the two great wars, sets off from Genoa and heads towards Buenos Aires to try his fortune. Hunger and pain, the farewell to his the way to the port with some friends who are also leaving, the trip by boat, a shipwreck, the arrival to the port in Buenos Aires, his trip by train to the Pampa, his enrolment in a circus… are milestones in this journey where the adolescent is initiated into the world of sex, love is discovered, a job is found, and he will start building his identity in this new land. A poignant and encouraging novel
about the initiation of a boy into adulthood. Stefano is not just a novel about immigration, it is regarded as a classic, it is a must in juvenile Spanish literature.

“Pay attention: Stefano is an unusual example of the compatibility between suspense and critical realism, between simple and exquisite language”. Peter Braulein. Bulletin Jugend & Literatur und Medien.

Prizes and honours awarded

White Ravens 1998. Internationale Jugendbibliothek. Munich. Germany.
Destacados (Distinguished) ALIJA (Argentinean Children and Juvenile Literature Association), 1999.
Best book, awarded by the “Bulletin Jugendliteratur & Medien”, monthly German magazine of Literature and other Media for young readers. January, 2004.
Finalist for Argentina Editora Mariana Vera. International Young Publisher of the Year Award. London 2005.
Finalist, Edición Santillana and University of Salamanca Prize. Master of Editing. Madrid, 2006.

 

Published bay: Argentina Editorial Sudamericana / Colombia and Latin America Babel Libros/ Spain SM/ Galician Galaxia editorial /Germany Atlantis Verlag.  (*contract expired)

Novel. Illustrated by Gabriel Hernández
Editorial Anaya, Madrid, 2003. 5th edition, 2007. 32 pages.
10 years +
In order to escape from misery, Juan’s parents decide to leave the countryside and migrate to the city. They will not sell cattle any more, but will collect cardboard and newspapers instead in Villa Cartón (Cardboard City). Life there will prove to be difficult. However the day Juan’s and Anarina’s lives cross, the future will start brightening up and they will both play a main role in it.

Prizes and honours

Selected by the Secretariat of Public Education, Ministry of Culture and Education of Mexico, 2006

Published bay: Spanish worldwide Anaya

María Teresa Andruetto

Nouvelle. Colección Zona Libre. Norma Grupo Editor, 2005. 60 pages

Young readers

Rosa Mamani, a descendant of the Aymara Indians, returns to Quebrada de Humahuaca (Northwest Argentina) where her ancestors lived. There, Rosa unveils to an external figure the story of her life in a crescendo of events, memories and emotions. Rosa Manani is a strong and at the same time weak character, she is deeply marked by the events that brought terrible upheaval into her family: the tragic death of her father, her confrontation with her mother, poverty, discrimination, resentment… However, by returning to her origins and sustained by words and by a handicraft activity (the glazes or patinas that entitle the book), she is able to build up a hair-raising account about her search for identity.

Distinctions
Destacados (Distinguished) ALIJA/2006 (Argentinean Children and Juvenile Literature Association).
Los mejores Libros de 2007 (Best Books 2007). Banco del Libro. Caracas (Venezuela)

“Pain chips the life of Rosa Mamaní, a young girl that is left “alone in the world, with no father, no mother and no memory.” These are the words that resound in the epigraph by Horacio Castillo, which open this nouvelle by María Teresa Andruetto. The need to ask oneself about one’s identity, one’s story, is what sustains this story that comes in waves, seeking to be listened to”.  Cecilia Bajour. Imaginaria Magazine.

Published bay: Argentina: Norma/ México SM/ Italy Edizioni ETS

Alma, the main character, lives in Buenos Aires with her parents and goes every weekend to their house in the Delta. She makes friends with Carmen and Marito there. Carmen and Marito are islanders and live across a stream with their grandmother Doña Ángela.

These three friends share their childhood adventures in the wild and lonely landscape of paradise. The constant river, with its power to swallow any living creature into its depths, is their fishing realm one day and turns against them the next.

Alma innocently handles the duality between these weekend friends and her life in the city with her parents, their social differences, her future possibilities as opposed to the difficulties that lie ahead in her friends’ lives once childhood is over. They are oblivious of the future. They build houses on the trees; they dream their own universe and spy the mysteries of the adult world around them.

Tordo, Carmen and Marito’s uncle, does not approve of this friendship. His grim personality fascinates and scares Alma and his love affair with a twenty years older rich hungarian who spends her weekends upstream is the centre of Alma’s and Carmen’s teenage speculations.

Their friendship is threatened by the changes time brings. In the first teenage years Alma falls in love with Marito but her social life belongs in the city with her school mates. She doesn’t like her school mates; she doesn’t feel she belongs with them. It’s the seventies and the military coup takes over the country. Alma tries to socialize in a group of people who chooses to ignore the political situation.