The sound of things falling / Juan Gabriel Vásquez ; t ranslated from the Spanish by Anne McLean.
Material type:
TextLanguage: English Original language: Spanish Publisher: New York : Riverhead Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2013Description: 270 pages ; 24 cmContent type: - text
- unmediated
- volume
- 1594487480 (hbk.)
- 9781594487484 (hbk.)
- Ruido de las cosas al caer. English
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
|
Main Library | Fiction | Vasquez Juan | Available | 33111007162288 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
* National Bestseller and winner of the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
* Hailed by Edmund White as "a brilliant new novel" on the cover of the New York Times Book Review
* Lauded by Jonathan Franzen, E. L. Doctorow and many others
From a global literary star comes a prize-winning tour de force - an intimate portrayal of the drug wars in Colombia.
Juan Gabriel V#65533;squez has been hailed not only as one of South America's greatest literary stars, but also as one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation. In this gorgeously wrought, award-winning novel, V#65533;squez confronts the history of his home country, Colombia.
In the city of Bogot#65533;, Antonio Yammara reads an article about a hippo that had escaped from a derelict zoo once owned by legendary Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. The article transports Antonio back to when the war between Escobar's Medell#65533;n cartel and government forces played out violently in Colombia's streets and in the skies above. Back then, Antonio witnessed a friend's murder, an event that haunts him still. As he investigates, he discovers the many ways in which his own life and his friend's family have been shaped by his country's recent violent past. His journey leads him all the way back to the 1960s and a world on the brink of change: a time before narco-trafficking trapped a whole generation in a living nightmare.
V#65533;squez is "one of the most original new voices of Latin American literature," according to Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa, and The Sound of Things Falling is his most personal, most contemporary novel to date, a masterpiece that takes his writing--and will take his literary star--even higher.
"Originally published in Spain 2011 by Alfaguara (Santillana Ediciones Generales) as El ruido de las cosas al caer."
No sooner does he get to know Ricardo Laverde than disaffected young Colombian lawyer Antonio Yammara realizes that his new friend has a secret, or rather several secrets. Antonio's fascination with the life of ex-pilot Ricardo Laverde begins by casual acquaintance in a seedy Bogotá billiard hall and grows until the day Ricardo receives a cassette tape in an unmarked envelope. Asking Antonio to find him somewhere private to play it, they go to a library. The first time he glances up from his seat in the next booth, Antonio sees tears running down Laverde's cheeks; the next, the ex-pilot has gone. Shortly afterwards, Ricardo is shot dead on a street corner in Bogotá by a guy on the back of a motorbike and Antonio is caught in the hail of bullets. Lucky to survive, and more out of love with life than ever, he starts asking questions until the questions become an obsession that leads him to Laverde's daughter. His troubled investigation leads all the way back to the early 1960s, marijuana smuggling and a time before the cocaine trade trapped a whole generation of Colombians in a living nightmare of fear and random death.
Translated from the Spanish.