The Lisbon Syndrome

A WORLD LITERATURE TODAY NOTABLE TRANSLATION OF 2022 A sudden catastrophe in Europe exposes the slow-motion destruction of a generation of Venezuelans and their struggle against repression. The Lisbon Syndrome is the story of two catastrophes. A disaster annihilates a European capital, but few details filter through state media censorship in Caracas, home to many thousands of Portuguese. Fernando runs a theater program for young people in the Caracas neighborhood of Colinas de Bello Monte, teaching and performing classics like Macbeth and Mother Courage. His benefactor, Old Moreira, is a childless Portuguese immigrant who recalls the Lisbon of his youth. Fernando’s students suffer from what they begin to call “the Lisbon syndrome,” an acute awareness that they have no future, that there are no possibilities left for them in a country devastated by a murderous, criminal regime. A series of confrontations between demonstrators and government forces draw the students and their teacher toward danger. One disappears into the state secret prisons where dissidents are tortured. The arts center that was their sanctuary is attacked. Little by little, Fernando finds himself pulled into the battle in the streets. The Lisbon Syndrome is the most trenchant contemporary novel to offer a glimpse of life and death in Venezuela. But Sánchez Rugeles’s bleak vision is lightened by his wry humor, and by characters who show us the humanity behind stark headlines.