The Sound of Things Falling
By Juan Gabriel Vasquez
Translated by Anne McLean
By Juan Gabriel Vasquez
Translated by Anne McLean
By Juan Gabriel Vasquez
Translated by Anne McLean
By Juan Gabriel Vasquez
Translated by Anne McLean
Category: Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction | Crime Fiction | Suspense & Thriller
Category: Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction | Crime Fiction | Suspense & Thriller
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$18.00
Jun 03, 2014 | ISBN 9781594632747
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Aug 01, 2013 | ISBN 9781101605387
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$18.00
Jun 03, 2014 | ISBN 9781594632747
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Aug 01, 2013 | ISBN 9781101605387
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Praise
Praise for The Sound of Things Falling
â[A] Brilliant new novelâŠgrippingâŠabsorbing right to the end. The Sound of Things Falling may be a page turner, but itâs also a deep meditation on fate and death.â âEdmund White, The New York Times Book Review
âDeeply affecting and closely observed.â âHector Tobar, Los Angeles Times
âLike Bolaño, [Vasquez] is a master stylist and a virtuoso of patient pacing and intricate structure, and he uses the novel for much the same purpose that Bolaño did: to map the deep, cascading damage done to our world by greed and violence and to concede that even love canât repair it.â âLev Grossman, Time Magazine
âJuan Gabriel Vasquez is a considerable writer. The Sound of Things Falling is an artful, ruminative mystery⊠And the reader comes away haunted by its strong playing out of an irreversible fate.â âE. L. Doctorow
âCompellingâŠgenuine and magnificently written.â âLibrary Journal, STARRED
âLiterary magic of one of Latin Americaâs most talented novelistsâŠa masterpiece.â âBooklist, STARRED
âAn exploration in the ways in which stories profoundly impact our lives.â âPublishers Weekly, STARRED
âLanguid existential noir, one that may put you in mind of Paul Auster.â âDwight Garner, New York Times
âIf you only read one book this monthâŠâ âEsquire
âRazor-sharpâ âO, the Oprah Magazine
âAn undoubted talent⊠Introspective and personal.â âThe Wall Street Journal
âItâs noir raised to the level of art. Itâs a page-turner but itâs also a profound meditation on fate and mortality.â â2013 Premior Gregor von Rezzori Prize announcement
âVĂĄsquez creates characters whose memories resonate powerfully across an ingeniously interlocking structureâŠVĂĄsquez creates a compelling literary workâone where an engaging narrative envelops poignant memories of a fraught historical period.â âThe New Republic
âThe Sound of Things Falling is a masterful chronicle of how the violence between the cartels and government forces spilled out to affect and corrode ordinary lives. It is also VĂĄsquezâs finest work to dateâŠ. His stark realism â the flip side of the magical variation of his compatriot Gabriel Garcia Marquez â together with his lyrical treatment of memory produces both an electrifying and a sobering read.â âMalcolm Forbes, San Francisco Chronicle
âHauntingâŠVasquez brilliantly and sensitively illuminates the intimate effects and whispers of life under siege, and the moral ambiguities that inform survival.â â Cleveland Plain Dealer
âMoving⊠The novel presents the human toll exacted by the countryâs years of violence.â â New York Observer
âQuietly elegant⊠VĂĄsquez is a resourceful storyteller. Scenes and dialogue shine with well-chosen details. His theme echoes compellingly through family parallels, ill-fated flights and even a recurring hippo motif. He shrugs off the long shadow of Gabriel Garcia Marquez with a gritty realism that has its own persuasive magic.â â Bloomberg News
Praise for Juan Gabriel Vasquez
âFrom the opening paragraph of The Informers, I felt myself under the spell of a masterful writer. Juan Gabriel VĂĄsquez has many giftsâintelligence, wit, energy, a deep vein of feelingâbut he uses them so naturally that soon enough one forgets oneâs amazement at his talents, and then the strange, beautiful sorcery of his tale takes hold.â âNicole Krauss
âJuan Gabriel VĂĄsquez is one of the most original new voices of Latin American literature. His first novel, The Informers, a very powerful story about the shadowy years immediately following World War II, is testimony to the richness of his imagination as well as the subtlety and elegance of his prose.â âMario Vargas Llosa
âWhat VĂĄsquez offers us, with great narrative skill, is that grey area of human actions and awareness where our capacity to make mistakes, betray, and conceal creates a chain reaction which condemns us to a world without satisfaction. Friends and enemies, wives and lovers, parents and children mix and mingle angrily, silently, blindly, while the novelist uses irony and ellipsis to unmask his charactersâ âself-protective strategiesâ and goes with them â not discovering them, simply accompanying them â as they come to understand that an unsatisfactory life can also be the life they inherit.â âCarlos Fuentes
âFor anyone who has read the entire works of Gabriel GarcĂa MĂĄrquez and is in search of a new Colombian novelist, then Juan Gabriel VĂĄsquezâs The Informers is a thrilling new discovery.â âColm TĂłibĂn
âA fine and frightening study of how the past preys upon the present, and an absorbing revelation of a little-known wing of the theatre of the Nazi war.â âJohn Banville
Praise for The Informers
â[A] remarkable novel. It deals with big universal themes⊠It is the best work of literary fiction to come my way since 2005âŠand into the bargain it is immensely entertaining, with twists and turns of plot that yield great satisfaction.â âJonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
âOne hallmark of a gifted novelist is the ability to see the potential for compelling fiction in an incident, anecdote or scrap of history, no matter how dry or seemingly obscure, that others have overlooked. By that standard and several others, the career of Juan Gabriel VĂĄsquezâŠis off to a notable start.âŠ[A] straight-ahead, old-fashioned narrative⊠Two years ago Mr. VĂĄsquez was included on a list of the most âimportantâ Latin American writers under 40, nominated by more than 2,000 authors, literary agents, librarians, editors and critics. The Informers alone justifies their choice, given its challenging subject and psychological depth, but clearly there are bigger and even more intriguing things on the way.â â Larry Rohter, The New York Times
âChillingâŠThe past is a shadow-bound, elusive creature in [The Informers]⊠When pursued it may flee, or, if cornered, it may unleash terrible truths.â âLos Angeles Times
âTo read The Informers is to enjoy the shock of new talent⊠[VĂĄsquezâs] novel is subtle, surprising and deeply pleasurable, with razors secreted among its pages.â âThe Cleveland Plain Dealer
âCompellingâŠThe book combines a reflection on the delicate bonds of family, a journey through one of the few untold stories of World War II and even a look at the sometimes parasitic nature of the media⊠What sets The Informers, apart from other historical novels is Vasquezâs questioning of his own role as muckraker and writer.â âSan Francisco Chronicle
âDramatic and surprisingâŠâ âHarperâs Magazine
âUnlike anything written by his Latin American contemporaries. If there is any prevailing influence in this chilling work, it is in the late German writer, W.G. SebaldâŠThe Informers deserves to be readâŠ[O]ne of this yearâs outstanding books.â âThe Financial Times
âMasterfulâŠVĂĄsquez has much in common with Roberto BolañoâŠ. But unlike Bolañoâs stolid, serviceable prose, VĂĄsquezâs style is musical, occasionally even lush, and its poeticism remains unmuddled in McLeanâs translation.â âBookforum
Praise for The Secret History of Costaguana
âAn intricately detailed, audacious reframing of Nostromo, the classic 1904 Joseph Conrad tale of power, corruption, intrigue and revolution in a South American country he called Costaguana. The Secret History of Costaguana is a potent mixture of history, fiction and literary gamesmanship. VĂĄsquezâs themes are of the moment: powerful countries (the U.S. foremost among them) dabbling in Latin American politics, bribing politicians and journalists, trolling for profits; European writers appropriating history for their own tales. His particular triumph with this novel is to remind us, as Balzac put it, that novels can be âthe private histories of nations.âââLos Angeles Times
â[An] exceptional new novelâŠWhen Mr. VĂĄsquez, like Conrad, focuses on the individuals trapped in these national tragicomedies, he displays a keen emotional and moral awareness. The Secret History of Costaguana is a cunning tribute to a classic, but it also stands on its own merits as a dense and involving story about men who are either manipulating history or finding themselves at the barrel-end of it.â âWall Street Journal
[A] post-modern literary revenge story.â âThe New York Times