The Shipyard — Juan Carlos Onetti

“The Graham Greene of Uruguay . . . foreshadowing the work of Beckett and Camus.” -- The Sunday Telegraph
 
With all the enthusiasm of a man condemned to be hanged, Larsen takes up his new post. Like the other workers at the shipyard, he routinely goes through the motions. Every so often, his sense of reality is shaken by a tremor of self-deception, and then it is possible to believe that the yard's glory is not just a thing of the past.