Spanish / Argentina
De qué nos reíamos cuando todo estaba bien
(What we laughed about when everything was good)
Sukaczer, Verónica
(text)
Buenos Aires: Nube de tinta, [2024]. – 191 p.
ISBN 978-987-1997-79-4
Bullying | Peer group | Violence | Group dynamics | Cruelty
Reading age: 13+
White Ravens issue: 2025
In this powerful novel, Verónica Sukaczer tells how a victim becomes a perpetrator. Jeremías and his friend Albano move from the countryside to the city to attend secondary school. Some classmates target them from the start, mocking and bullying them. While Albano is unable to withstand the pressure and hostility over time, Jeremías’s personality undergoes a radical change. He develops a hardness he had not shown before, begins to taunt others himself, relish their weaknesses, and bully them in cruel ways. In clear, forthright language, the author depicts group dynamics as well as the conflicting feelings of the first-person narrator Jeremías – insecurity, vulnerability, the sense of exclusion, and the need for recognition – without passing judgment. The plot and characters are not developed around a simple good-evil dichotomy, but are complex, contradictory, and thus convincing. A novel that lingers long in the mind. [JW]