Gustavo Rodríguez, Alfaguara Novel Prize 2023: What is ‘Cyan Guinea Pigs’ about, his unpublished work?

Gustavo Rodriguez According to the jury, Alfaguarra became the second Peruvian to win the Novel Prize with his work ‘Sian Kinip Pigs’, a tragic work that touches on today’s society’s anti-aging and anti-longevity. Official description.

The work, presented under the title “Long Journey to Farewell” and the pseudonym “One Hundred Guys”, takes place in a residential area in Lima, where a few wealthy-class old people are languishing. Press kit.

Its protagonist Euphrasia Vela, Frasia, pressed by her economic needs and having to raise her son Niko, gradually becomes an essential company for some of these elderly people, who takes care of them, and then she does so in the apartment. In the neighborhood, a group of residents have formed a family that calls itself the “Magnificent Seven.”

However, despite Fracia’s care, the days for all these characters are constantly filled with medication, bland meals at specific times, TV movies, ailments and the occasional chat. The publisher explains.

Loneliness and encounters go hand in hand in “Cyan Guinea Pigs,” class differences and the ability to empathize across them, uncertainty about the future and aging, the end of family and dependence. “Above all this, he projects the essential human need to find meaning in life,” says Alfaguara.