FICTION

The President and the Frog

by Carolina De Robertis
Knopf. Aug. 2021. 224p. ISBN 9780593318416. $25.
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A former president of an unnamed Latin American country lives out his retirement simply, the same way he served his people, in a humble home surrounded by things he loves—wife, dogs, garden. A journalist travels from Norway for an interview, one of many seeking insight into this former guerilla and political prisoner–turned–president. The ex-president is an international curiosity, so he has given many interviews and been generous of his time, but he has never shared it all. Until now, he has never spoken of how he survived so many years in solitary confinement; of how, as he teetered on the edge of sanity, he spoke to a frog—a thoroughly unsympathetic frog, who challenged him relentlessly. What results is sometimes full of despair, at other times shining with wit and irreverence.
VERDICT In a tale of survival, resilience, and resistance, of forming connections and establishing personal priorities, De Robertis (Cantoras) delivers a meditation on human feeling, both ugly and beautiful. The ex-president always felt close to the earth, with living things a balm to his soul, just as a beautiful story like this one is a balm to readers.
Reviewed by Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal , Sep 24, 2021
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