Songs for the Flames

Praise

Praise for Songs for the Flames

“[H]aunting and beautiful… Songs for the Flames is a book about war and imperialism, which in Vasquez’s view never really end, but rather mutate: devolving here into individual traumas paid out over generations, evolving there into state corruption and endless cycles of violence…. [A] book about secrets and lies, which is to say speech acts: their tremendous power, but also the limits of that power and the wretched ecstasy of revelation. Or recognition. Because discovering a secret is not the same as being told one, which is something else again from having a secret to protect.” –New York Times
 
“Politics thread throughout this fiercely imagined collection as the Colombian master excavates the aftermath of violent upheaval, characters adrift in dread and wonder…We’re shocked, shocked by the genius in his craft.” –Oprah Daily
 
“The power of [the story] ‘Woman on the Riverbank’ comes from the author’s refusal to create easy drama, his insistence on loose ends taking on a power of their own, his belief that mystery holds a truth that lives beyond fact or beyond simple explanation.” –Electric Literature
 
“Immediately upon finishing Songs for the Flames, I wanted to start reading it again…. Juan Gabriel Vásquez is a major voice on the world literary stage, and his fiction does not look away or blink in the face of adversity.” –World Literature Today

“Prodigious author, journalist, and translator Vásquez, one of South America’s most important writers, is once again deftly translated by award-winning [Anne] McLean.” –Booklist, starred review

“A bravura collection blending autofiction with stories of historical and personal trauma…Vásquez continues to distinguish himself among the finest writers from Latin America.” –Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Vásquez paints a picture of a country that’s constantly buffeted by violent political rivalries, narcos, and war and where even bystanders get drawn in. A bracing set of stories about smaller traumas embedded among a country’s larger crises.” –Kirkus Reviews


Praise for Juan Gabriel Vásquez
 
“Masterly.” – Yiyun Li, New York Times Book Review

“Like Bolaño, [Vasquez] is a master stylist and a virtuoso of patient pacing and intricate structure.” – Lev Grossman, Time Magazine

“Exceptional.” – The Wall Street Journal

“The narrative escalates, the mystery deepens, and the scope of the story widens with each page.” – Khaled Hosseini

“Dramatic and surprising.” – Harper’s Magazine

“Remarkable.” – Washington Post

“Razor-sharp” —O, the Oprah Magazine

“Juan Gabriel Vásquez is one of the most original new voices of Latin American literature.” —Mario Vargas Llosa