FROM SAVAGERY

by Alejandra Banca

Translated from the Spanish by Katie Brown

• Dazzling new literary talent from Venezuela, a modern classic

• A lost generation finds its representative voice

• “FROM SAVAGERY is not only a book, it’s a global situation . . . Alejandra Banca is brave!” Jan Queretz, Casapaís

Hustle, dodge, pedal, breathe; love, bury, don’t look back. In this fast-paced collection of stories from Venezuelan debut author Alejandra Banca, a lost generation of young refugees accelerates into the light with breathtaking rhythm and shimmering authenticity. These are the Savages.

In the heat of Barcelona beats the pulse of a new young underclass; once the bright future of Venezuela, it disappeared after the country's surreal collapse. From savagery they emerge and take flight: a cohort of friends thrumming with life, there before the world but under its radar. Escaping hunger and worse in Caracas, they pedal the streets as fast-food delivery “riders”, prostitutes and dealers, scratching their living at speed, in flight through the streets of a new city whose punishing hills and dark alleys they navigate at risk, visible in fleeting moments at a doorstep, on a corner, or weaving through rush-hour traffic.

Savages to some they become hypnotic fireflies here, discovering identity, surviving insult, questioning gender, finding love, trying to forget, or is it to remember, but alive and supporting each other through stories of fear, horror, laughter and hope. María Eugenia pedals 84 frenetic hours a week, her body broken and bleeding, rapid orders pushing through to her phone that rings non-stop. She has kept in touch with Cheo who looks forward to the arrival of his girlfriend from Venezuela but has yet to tell her he is married to Andrés. Nataly has turned to prostitution only to fall in love with Sasha, her mysterious Russian client, while El Loco is now the most feared drug dealer in Madrid with a clouded past in Caracas where FROM SAVAGERY opens in a funeral home, and at the moment Angélica realises she can’t afford her mother's burial—the country has no gas to fire cremations.

Each generation comes alive through its language and the Savages have their own; it is as distinct as the friendship they share, crackling, proud, and without apology, a gust of fresh air whose spirit is life itself. Banca has captured it all.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Alejandra Banca studied literature at Andrés Bello University in Caracas. Fleeing the collapse, in Barcelona she has worked in cold sales and teaching English. Her poetry has appeared in various anthologies. FROM SAVAGERY is her first book. Selkies House publishes her first novel in 2025.

Katie Brown is a senior lecturer in Modern Languages at Exeter University. An expert on contemporary Latin American culture, she has appeared on BBC Radio 4’s “Open Book” and is part of the women’s U.K., U.S. and Venezuelan translation collective, Colaboratorio Ávila. Her translations appear regularly in the quarterly journal, Latin American Literature Today.

“Rebels like the flowers from the garden of an uninhabited house that continue to sprout: these are the painful realities of the past two decades of Venezuela, but which also hold beauty”. Andrea Sofía Crespo

“Some books sleep, others live, others still create life”. Jan Queretz, Casapaís