Mario Bellatin: Beauty Salon

Just like the first time I bought fish, I chose one male and two females. One of them even turned out to be pregnant. As I said, unlike those first fish these turned out to be survivors. They withstand the lack of care in a very reasonable manner. The oxygen pumps are broken except for one that works in fits and starts. At times, the water seems to purify itself and I almost never have time to clean it.

Salón de Belleza (Beauty Salon): a city we don't know the name is ravaged by an epidemic we are not told the title either; a transvestite is indifferently caring for the victims of the disease. Does it make sense? Maybe, if you have the taste for Camus, Saramago, and Frida Kahlo, like I do.

NY Times published the first chapter. Enjoy!

(Mario Bellatin)

Mario Bellatin

(photo: Janet Jarman for NYT)

It is not unusual for Latino-Americans novelists to have the appetite for the unusual; it seems that Mario Bellatin overtakes them all. Once, at a meeting with his readers, he invented a Japanese author, declared this fictive guy as his favorite and spoke copiously about him, noting a nose so immense that it caused always problems to Shiki Nagaoka at dinner time (Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher, Baudelaire would have said).

You should read this mini-essay about Mario Bellatin (it was published in yesterday's NY Times; the author is Larry Richter) and you will agree: the guy is really cool.

• Beauty Salon

(Una Vida Entre Libros)