Where There’s Love, There’s Hate

Suzanne Jill Levine and Jessica Ernst Powell

Part of The Neversink Library

“Silvina Ocampo is one of our best writers.”— Jorge Luis Borges

It’s a mystery as to why two towering igures of Latin American literature such as Silvina Ocampo and Adolfo Bioy Casares aren’t better known outside Spanish-language literature for more than just their close association with Jorge Luis Borges. Particularly for this book—the only novel the husband-and-wife team wrote together, which has never before been translated into English.

It, too, is a mystery: In seaside Bosque del Mar, Argentina, guests at the Hotel Central are struck by double misfortune—the mysterious death of one of their party, and an investigation headed by the physician, writer, and insufferable busybody, Dr. Humberto Huberman. When pretty young translator Mary is found dead on the first night of Huberman’s stay, he quickly appoints himself leader of an inquiry that will see blame apportioned in turn to each and every guest—including Mary’s own sister—escalating into a wild, wind-blown reconnaissance mission to the nearby shipwreck, the Joseph K.

Where There’s Love, There’s Hate is both a genuinely suspenseful mystery and an ingenious send-up of the genre—a novel that’s captivating, unashamedly erudite, and gloriously witty.

ADOLFO BIOY CASARES (1914-99) is one of the most important literary figures of his native Argentina, most famous as the author of The Invention of Morel (1940). He won the French Legion of Honour and the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, was a lifelong friend of Borges, and married to Silvina Ocampo.

SILVINA OCAMPO (1903-1993) was an award-winning poet and short story writer, also well known for her children’s fiction. She was born in Buenos Aires and later studied art in Paris. Together with her husband Adolfo Bioy Casares and Jorge Luis Borges, she edited the famous 1940 Antología de la literature fantástica.

SUZANNE JILL LEVINE is the author of numerous studies in Latin American literature and the translator of works by Adolfo Bioy Casares, Jorge Luis Borges, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, and Manuel Puig, among other distinguished writers. Levine’s most recent book is Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman: His Life and Fictions. She is a professor in the Spanish Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

JESSICA ERNST POWELL has translated works by numerous Latin American writers, including Jorge Luis Borges, César Vallejo, Ernesto Cardenal, and Carmen Boullosa.  She is the recipient of a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship for her translation of Antonio Benítez Rojo’s Woman in Battle Dress.

“This deftly constructed collaboration offers more riddles than one might expect.” —Vol. 1 Brooklyn

“One of the most charming, purely enjoyable books I’ve ever read.” —Pasha Malla for the Globe and Mail

“[An] unsung jewel of a novella…Bioy Casares and Ocampo save a final subversive wink for their utterly perfect last line: an elegant reminder that, inevitably, reality contains mysteries more unfathomable than any detective plot.” —Words Without Borders

“Bioy Casares has a charm and a sinister wit.”— John Updike

“[Bioy Casares is] one of the most innovative and imaginative names in Argentine writing.”— Kate Bowen, The Argentina Independent

“Bioy Casares is now Argentina’s most distinguished living man of letters and is considered a founding father of the new novel in all of Spanish America.”— The New Criterion

“Of all the words that could define [Silvina Ocampo], the most accurate is, I think, ingenious.”— Jorge Luis Borges

“I think Silvina Ocampo is a genius, one of the greatest. She lived a little in the shadow of her sister Victoria on the one hand and of her husband Bioy Casares and Borges on the other. She was an extravagant woman when writing her stories, short and crystalline, she was perfect.”— César Aira

“Silvina’s impressive literary production at least equals that of her husband Bioy in terms of quantity and possibly even far exceeds him in terms of quality, linguistic ability, and influence.”— Kate Bowen, The Argentina Independent

“Ocampa’s readers will participate in an unforgettable banquet. Luckily for many of us, Ocampo’s universe is constantly expanding.”— Página/12

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