Revelation in the revolution

  The former Argentine Montonero Ernesto Mallo ambushes the reader with cruel efficiency     Needle in a Haystack Ernesto Mallo, translated by Jethro Soutar 2010, Bitter Lemon Press 190 pages Reviewed by Gavin O’Toole ERNESTO MALLO is something of a revelation for the English-language reader, appearing out of nowhere like the militant that he was to ambush the unsuspecting reader going about his business. The ambush is swift, decisive and calculated, for this is a writer about whom the author Ana María Shua rightly said: “This man knows. He knows about guns, knows about women, knows about dead bodies.” Mallo has channelled the worldly knowledge he gained as a member of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias (later absorbed by the Montoneros) into his work, crafting narrative that is eloquently blunt in the style of a playwright, yet cannily deep. Economy can be a great virtue, and this writer wastes no time digging holes but pushes his reader forward rapidly upon the uneven, hazardous and fearful surface of Buenos Aires in the grip of the military terror. In the spirit of the playwright, Mallo maps this disconcerting landscape through characters that symbolise an Argentina that has lost its way. They are […]