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Silence of the Sirens (Flamingo)

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In a timeless, dark hillside village two woman meet: Maria is sensible, clear-sighted and modern; and Elsa is dreamy, mysterious and obsessively in love with a man whom she has only met but twice.
Elsa has come to the village to cultivate her love, to find a love that is more intense, mythical, above and beyond the cynical uninspired versions of reality. In the stillness of the night she contacts her lover through dreams - her thoughts crossing not only the high cold indifferent peaks that hem the village in, but also transcending time.
Gradually Maria is drawn into collaboration with Elsa's fantasy, embarking on an exploration of Elsa's dreamworld - a mysterious, threatening, irrational realm where her fear and hope are poised in a precarious balance. By the time Maria becomes aware of the dangers implied in such a journey...it is inevitably, proverbially too late...
Adelaide Garcia Morales was awarded the Herralde Prize for Fiction in Spain for this exquisite tale and in 1983 heer first work of fiction El Sur was made into a movie. Insane, magical, gloomy and sprightly, a novella that in fable guise enchants but by labyrinthine turns mesmerizes, haunts and leads us into our depths, our inner and most sequestered ideals with nowhere to hide...