Safe Return Doubtful

Translated by Lisa Dillman.

There have been a number of novels which may be considered as in the ilk of <i>Lord Of The Flies</i> and I notice that some reviewers have put this in that category also.
Here, there are a few similarities, but a considerable number of differences. Either way, it was completely compelling throughout.
It is set in a small Argentinian town just outside of the fictitious city of San Cristóbal, which I summise is in the north of the country, the Misiones province, as it has the only jungle I am aware of.
A group of feral children, aged between 9 and 13, emerge filthy and dishevelled from the jungle, initially to steal food, but soon to terrorise the town, speaking in an unintelligible language, and disappearing as quickly as they arrived.  
We know from the outset that all 32 of these children lose their lives, but rather than a spoiler, it is actually works as being more gripping, as we need to find out why.
Barba presents the story as an actual event, which surely the reader has heard about, quoting various journalists and documentaries made since. The enchantment comes from the meditative tone and the introspective mood he creates though, which make it stand out; this is about how the adults behave, rather than the children.
There are a few quite unsettling episodes, but I’ll attempt to entice you with just one – when the town’s “children began putting their ears to the ground to listen for the thirty two.” An unexplained connection emerges.
<blockquote>Children, <i>our</i> children—were not only additional props on this orchestrated stage, in a way they were also the blind spots of people’s arrogance.</blockquote>
As haunting as the writing is, the book succeeds because of its compassion.

Amongst those other “LOTF-esque” books I refer to, are two recent translations that I would recommend as well worth reading, the tongue-in-cheek horror <i>The Laws Of The Skies by Grégoire Courtois</i> and the excellent <i>Children Of The Cave by Virve Sammalkorpi</i>.