Elena Knows

Can the judges please give the Booker to this author and translator! This is the story of Elena, a mother who is suffering from Parkinson's and in search of her daughter's killer. The story revolves around the span of one day when Elena is stepping out to get to that one person who could help her get closer to the mystery of her daughter's death. In less than 200 pages, the author has explored a wide range of themes- from motherhood, abortion, womanhood to childhood- with care and precision. I was completely drawn in and enveloped by the beauty of her prose, the clarity through which such a tense, nail-biting story has been told. Sometimes, it was unbearable to put the book down. I kept wanting to read it without a story, without a bookmark to break the flow of such beautiful writing. I don't think I'd say more on this now. All I'd ask is for you to go and pick this book up and let it twist your heart, play with your emotions and disturb your mind.

Elena who is in her 60's suffering from Parkinson's disorder firmly believes that her daughter Rita did not commit suicide, and wants to find the culprit. With the police investigation closed, she is forced to investigate. With her severely impaired mobility, she sets out on a journey with a goal.🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🍭🍭Shortlisted for International Booker Prize 2022🍭🍭"What name do you give to a woman with a dead child? I’m not a widow, I’m not an orphan, what am I? Elena waits silently, with her back to him and before he can answer she says, better you don’t give me a name, Father, if you or your church ever find a name for me you’ll probably just take away my right to decide how I behave or how I live my life. Or how I die. Better not, she says and starts walking away. Mother, Elena, you are still a mother, you will always be. Amen, she says and she leaves with the certainty that she won’t ever return''🌼🌼🌼A very short novel that speaks volumes 📣 📣Which conveys so much in a very few pages.🌼🌼" I do want to live you know? In spite of this body, in spite of my dead daughter Elena says crying, I still choose to live"~~ Elena knows🌼🌼🌼 Pretty much a perfect book deserves to be shortlisted for Booker. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 5/5

Elena, all of sixty-three years old, knows that her daughter did not die by hanging herself. She knows there is more to it and wants to find out what happened to Rita. Why do they claim that Rita hung herself in the church belfry? How could that have been possible since it was raining that night and Rita would’ve never gone out in the rain as she was petrified of lightning? Elena wants answers about her daughter’s death, and no one is willing to help her. She is determined to find the culprit. Even if it means she has to venture out and journey through the suburbs of the city, to call on a favour from a woman named Isabel, who she and her daughter met twenty years ago. Even if it means that she has to do this as she suffers from Parkinson’s – the disease that will not let go of her and will obstruct her search to some extent. What happens next is what the novel is all about.Piñeiro is well-known as a “thriller” or “crime” writer in Argentina and even around the world. Elena Knows, according to me is a good start to get to know her writing and fall in love with it. I’m surprised that with almost four books translated in English, Piñeiro is still not that well-known. I hope that changes when more people read Elena Knows.Elena Knows is so much – a detective novel, a woman dependent on her disease to make all basic decisions – that of walking, turning her neck, seeing someone, and even sometimes breathing. It is a lucid and most disturbing commentary on mother-daughter relationships, and what happens when the child becomes a caregiver. It is also about the role of the government when it comes to providing medical care to its citizens – the red tapism, the bureaucracy, and the narrow-mindedness of it all. The book is political. It is about the agency of women and who controls their bodies. Piñeiro doesn’t hesitate to show society the mirror and make them realize what they stand for or not.The plot unfolds in a day with clearly marked sections – Morning, Midday, and Afternoon – the times that are governed by Elena’s medication schedule. If she misses this, she will not be able to function. She will not be in control of her body and has to follow the schedule. This is another important element of the book. Let me also add here that Elena is not a likeable protagonist. There are shades and layers to this character and that’s what makes her also so endearing to some extent. There is no maudlin expression of her coping with her disease. There are facts, there are emotions, and sometimes the two converge most beautifully in the book.Elena knows is so much more and I am stunned at how Piñeiro managed to say so much in such a small book. At the same time, Frances Riddle’s translation is on-point and makes you wonder what it would sound like in Spanish. The sentences gleam and I often found myself underlining passages.Elena Knows is a book about patriarchy, structures, narrative (italics for dialogues), time, gender, motherhood, illness, and law and what we do with it, as we move on – day to day, hoping for a better tomorrow.

रस निष्पत्ति - करुण😪, अद्भुत😳 (in readers)भाव निर्मिति - रति🥰, शोक😔 ( in characters)I̶ h̶a̶v̶e̶ a̶l̶w̶a̶y̶s̶ w̶o̶n̶d̶e̶r̶e̶d̶ h̶o̶w̶ L̶o̶s̶s̶ i̶s̶ s̶u̶c̶h̶ a̶n̶ i̶n̶t̶e̶l̶l̶i̶g̶e̶n̶t̶ b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶. I̶t̶ m̶a̶y̶ n̶o̶t̶ h̶a̶v̶e̶ b̶e̶e̶n̶ a̶ p̶a̶r̶t̶ o̶f̶ y̶o̶u̶r̶ l̶i̶f̶e̶ e̶v̶e̶r̶ & s̶u̶d̶d̶e̶n̶l̶y̶ w̶h̶e̶n̶ i̶t̶ i̶s̶, i̶t̶ c̶a̶n̶ s̶p̶a̶n̶ y̶o̶u̶r̶ b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶. I̶t̶ w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ k̶n̶o̶w̶ e̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ w̶i̶n̶d̶o̶w̶ t̶o̶ y̶o̶u̶r̶ h̶e̶a̶r̶t̶, e̶a̶c̶h̶ n̶o̶o̶k̶, e̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ c̶r̶e̶v̶i̶c̶e̶Let me not say it loud, lest it gears up again, visits me again. Haa! who am I fooling, when does it ever leave youThis story hit home, came on much much harder than I could envision 'coz just like only Elena knew what Parkinson is, my kin tooYet both of them were gallant fightersElena is not your perfect heroine. She fights with people the way she fights her disabilities. Yet her indomitable strength to find her daughter's murderer is commendableNarrative lens spans into the single day of Elena's life - a tiring journey that fills you with anxiety & to imagine people suffering from Parkinson have to live a life like this for, God knows, how many such 24 hrsAuthor's writing is beautifully layered. While at surface it may sound as murder mystery but it has so much more as you start unraveling each layer. From female abortion rights, mother daughter relationship to hypocrite societal normsTranslation never felt out of place & beautifully brought out the Argentinian texture

This is my first Pineiro book and I look forward to reading her other novels. Her characters are unique, they grapple with difficult questions and focus on important women’s issues. Brava to her.

I recommend this book to everyone concerned to understand the nature of Parkinson’s and its effects on the sufferer and the caregiver…it is an amazing, disturbing, yet thoroughly empathetic picture of illness and ageing and society’s continuing ignorance of both

Reporting from LA Metro, having just finished one of the most powerful novels I've read in a long time.While the debate over women's bodies rages on, and while films, novels, think pieces, op-eds and countless private conversations argue ad infinitum for or against, this quietly devastating story, all of which takes place in one day and over a few city blocks, constructs a compelling dialectic around individual rights and the power of personal freedom. It's so deeply immersive that for several minutes after turning the last page, I imagined I had conjured up the entire thing in my own brain.But no, I have @claudiapineiroescritora's incredible prose to thank for that.

A mother with Parkinson’s, Elena, believes her daughter did not commit suicide and embarks on a physical and mentally arduous journey to come to a central truth. It is a novel that starts small and ends large; from the alleged suicide of her daughter to a harrowing journey that, because it is internal and intersectional, becomes something about multiple systemic and insidious ways in which society removes agency from women and those not performing to puritanical standards.It very much has no concern with genre expectations, as most literary intersections tend to be. My largest issue is with the formatting, though. I think it’s supposed to reflect, somewhat, the mental state of the protagonist, but it doesn’t actually seem formatted as such. Coupled with a necessary retreading of ground to more effectively hit on memory issues Elena has, it creates an effect that constantly excises the reader from the text. Perhaps the formatting is supposed to be random, but because it’s walls and walls of text I spent my time looking for an answer and never found a satisfactory one.However, it’s certainly novel and interesting, and has very human, well-rendered characters—primarily featuring women. None feel archetypical and the plot also has that quality. I liked it quite a bit… after I just rolled with the unusual dense prose that I couldn’t understand the reason for.

This book has more depth than I could have imagined. It took some time for the story to build steam but was worth the time as it is thought provoking on three subjects that are intertwined. Short read, invest your time.