Changes

|title=School for Patriots

|author=Martin Kohan

|borrow=Yes

|isbn=9781846687433

|pages=208

|publisher=Serpent's Tail

|date=June 2012

|summary=Set in Argentina in June 1982, this is the story of a young female teaching assistant who goes to unusual lengths to please her boss before unfortunately finding out what he is really after. Somewhat strange but compelling and powerfully written. It has won the Spanish Heralde Prize so the author is already flushed with success, you might say.

}}

There's a fair chance that if you pick up a South American novel, it's going to score quite highly on the 'seriously odd' scale. Martín Kohan's ''School for Patriots'', translated by Nick Caistor, doesn't disappoint in that regard. The main character, María Teresa, is an innocent, shy teaching assistant at a Buenos Aires school that is run on military academy style discipline. The running of the school is itself something of a surprise but that's not what makes this strange. What ramps up the 'odd' factor here is that she spends vast amounts of this short novel hiding in the boys' loo, ostensibly to catch young boys smoking despite there being no evidence that any student has contravened this rule in this location. One might say she has nothing to go on. Then again, best not in the circumstances.

If I'm honest, I would struggle to think of other books that involve girls hiding in boys' loos, but for more interesting fiction involving Argentina, then [[Far South by David Enrique Spellman]] is intriguing and something a bit different, while [[Amulet by Roberto Bolano]] is a good example of this much praised Latin American author who can be challenging but rewarding.

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