Enero, Sara Gallardo’s first novel, is a short though powerful work. Nefer, the adolescent protagonist, lives and works with her parents and sister at a ranch where they milk cows in the dairy. The routine days of summer pass in apparent calm among the laborers, but within Nefer grows an anguish that feels like a dark ball overwhelming her: she has become pregnant after a rape. The novel masterfully captures the impossibility of giving voice to this anguish and presents the connection to the land and animals as a form of knowledge of another kind that can serve as a refuge from this lack of voice.
Guilt, fear, hatred, and also hope are the emotions with which this remarkably powerful book captivates the reader. A universal novel set in the Argentine countryside, Enero is a definitive demonstration of the contemporaneity and depth of Sara Gallardo’s literature, marking her as one of the great Argentine authors.