The Past is an Imperfect Tense

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The adoption of a baby by a couple unable to have children is the point of departure for The Past is an Imperfect Tense, in which B. Kucinski tells the story of a father-son relationship that begins intense and loving and ends up in pieces. The decline begins in the boy’s adolescence as he becomes involved with marijuana, amphetamines and crack, a process described by the narrator as “a frenzied pursuit of an artificial paradise.” Three factors come together in the story of the boy’s adoption, drug addiction and racism. The father – who is also the narrator – asks himself, “Would it have been possible at any point to alter the course of this story? Or was it all destined to be?” While Kucinski’s treatment of the story is meticulous and subtle, he writes in a terse style that pulls no punches. The result is a poignant text that confirms Kucinski’s place as one of the most outstanding writers of today. B. Kucinski has received Brazil’s Jabuti Award on two occasions and was awarded the Brazilian National Library Literary Prize in 2014 for the best short story collection . He was also a finalist for the International Literature Award in 2014 and was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for the English version of his novel K in 2015. ‘Like Kucinski’s first novel, K, this is a powerful evocation of parental love and loss. The Past is an Imperfect Tense juxtaposes scattered memories, retrospective regrets and scientific research as the narrator looks back over his son’s life and tries to piece together what went wrong.’ Claire Williams, Associate Professor of Brazilian Literature and Culture at the University of Oxford ‘This is first and foremost the compelling, relentlessly honest account of a parent’s agonised battle to love, understand and support an adopted son seemingly lost to drug dependency. But Kucinski tells that story by moving between Brazil and Israel, against a background of anti-black racism, social and political brutality, the migrant Arab diaspora experience, and the plight of the Palestinians. And in so doing he manages to suggest, subtly but powerfully, how his traumatised characters’ struggle to survive as a family, to come to terms with the scars of abandonment, deception, prejudice and guilt, might also stand for a broader condition of exile and precarity in our contemporary world.’ David Treece, Camoens Professor of Portuguese at King's College London