Overview

His biggest book since Oblivion, Héctor Abad’s humane voice buoys the spirit and reminds us of the value of human connection and the power of art. ""Mr. Abad’s prose is elastic and alive . . . [His writing] is extravagantly big-hearted.""— Dwight Garner on Oblivion, The New York Times Luis Cordóba, also known as Gordo, leads an unconventional life. His vocation as a priest has not stopped him from becoming a film critic, teacher, opera enthusiast, and passionate nibbler of chocolate and pepperoni. He lives in his childhood home in downtown Medellín with another priest, Aurelio Sánchez, or Lelo, among a slew of pets (war-mongering fish, a toucan, and parakeets aren't the half of it). It is Lelo who shades in these details, writing across time to the day in 1996 when life changed. At fifty, Gordo learns he needs a heart transplant. He is forbidden from climbing stairs, and so he moves into a different neighborhood with a friend, her housekeeper, and their children. With the briskness of sunshine drying out wet clothes, and air rushing through and renewing old places, Lelo reflects on Gordo's new era of thinking and feeling. Luis Cordóba is inspired by the life of the priest and film critic Luis Alberto Alvarez, a friend of Héctor Abad's, and an important figure in Colombian cultural spheres. To keep Aside from My Heart, All is Well from becoming a biography, Abad drew on a range of sources to conjure up Cordóba, a person who both is and is not Alberto Alvarez.

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9781962770590

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Reviews

""The heart of the title . . . alludes to the ailing organ of the protagonist, Luis Córdoba, who is awaiting a transplant. It also acts as a cultural symbol, a seat of the feelings, emotions, and passions that are deliberately spread throughout the work, leading it toward a powerful vitalist plea in which the beauty of existence and the ethic of caring for others prevail over monstrosity and moral abjection. All of this is far from sermons or preaching, but rather through a questioning of the characters' beliefs and disbeliefs."" — Domingo Ródenas de Moya, El País ""Aside from My Heart, All is Well tells the story of characters who speak to us about what truly matters. Their naturalness and generosity stay with us. We continue to speak to them."" — Alonso Cueto, Latin American Literature Today ""I store up what I have read by Héctor Abad like spherical, polished, luminous little balls of bread, ready for when I have to walk through a vast forest in the nighttime."" — Manuel Rivas ""Héctor Abad has written a tragic and unforgettable story."" — J. M. Coetzee on Oblivion ""A moving immersion into the inferno of Colombian political violence, into the life and soul of the city of Medellín, into the private life and public courage of a family, a true story that is also a superb fiction due to the way it is written and constructed, and one of the most eloquent arguments written in our time or any time against terror as an instrument of political action."" — Mario Vargas Llosa on Oblivion ""A family memoir that deserves classic status . . . [Abad] not only pays radiant homage to a hero but champions the path of peaceful change he so steadfastly took."" — Boyd Tonkin on Oblivion, The Independent ""This is a book that quietly knows what it is to be human, and to bridge, or reconcile, the gap between body and mind."" — Nicholas Lezard on Recipes for Sad Women, The Guardian ""The Farm is a treasure… With this novel, which deals with a seemingly local theme—the residents’ love for the land and the colonization of the town of Jericó—Héctor Abad gives us a universal work that explores the attachments that enslave human beings, who, to preserve them, are willing to risk everything."" — El Espectador on The Farm

""A mesmerizing chronicle of Luis Cordóba, an opera-loving priest and film critic . . . Abad offers a remarkable depiction of the harmony sustained in the priests' secular interests and spiritual devotion . . . An immersive and affecting tale."" —Publishers Weekly, starred review ""The heart of the title . . . alludes to the ailing organ of the protagonist, Luis Córdoba, who is awaiting a transplant. It also acts as a cultural symbol, a seat of the feelings, emotions, and passions that are deliberately spread throughout the work, leading it toward a powerful vitalist plea in which the beauty of existence and the ethic of caring for others prevail over monstrosity and moral abjection. All of this is far from sermons or preaching, but rather through a questioning of the characters' beliefs and disbeliefs."" — Domingo Ródenas de Moya, El País ""Aside from My Heart, All is Well tells the story of characters who speak to us about what truly matters. Their naturalness and generosity stay with us. We continue to speak to them."" — Alonso Cueto, Latin American Literature Today ""I store up what I have read by Héctor Abad like spherical, polished, luminous little balls of bread, ready for when I have to walk through a vast forest in the nighttime."" — Manuel Rivas ""Héctor Abad has written a tragic and unforgettable story."" — J. M. Coetzee on Oblivion ""A moving immersion into the inferno of Colombian political violence, into the life and soul of the city of Medellín, into the private life and public courage of a family, a true story that is also a superb fiction due to the way it is written and constructed, and one of the most eloquent arguments written in our time or any time against terror as an instrument of political action."" — Mario Vargas Llosa on Oblivion ""A family memoir that deserves classic status . . . [Abad] not only pays radiant homage to a hero but champions the path of peaceful change he so steadfastly took."" — Boyd Tonkin on Oblivion, The Independent ""This is a book that quietly knows what it is to be human, and to bridge, or reconcile, the gap between body and mind."" — Nicholas Lezard on Recipes for Sad Women, The Guardian ""The Farm is a treasure… With this novel, which deals with a seemingly local theme—the residents’ love for the land and the colonization of the town of Jericó—Héctor Abad gives us a universal work that explores the attachments that enslave human beings, who, to preserve them, are willing to risk everything."" — El Espectador on The Farm

""The novel’s triumph lies in how it separates the individuals from the institution of the Church, modeling a nuanced narrative that captures the latter’s virtues as vividly as its failures . . . Along with its religious and political preoccupations, it is also a novel about art. Córdoba is as devoted to film and music as he is to God. In fact, the two are inseparable in his eyes. For Córdoba, 'Art and beauty are a war declared against brutality and indifference, and therefore a reflection of love, which is the clearest and most palpable manifestation of the existence of God.'"" —Krista Timeus Cerezo, Words Without Borders ""A mesmerizing chronicle of Luis Cordóba, an opera-loving priest and film critic . . . Abad offers a remarkable depiction of the harmony sustained in the priests' secular interests and spiritual devotion . . . An immersive and affecting tale."" —Publishers Weekly, starred review ""The heart of the title . . . alludes to the ailing organ of the protagonist, Luis Córdoba, who is awaiting a transplant. It also acts as a cultural symbol, a seat of the feelings, emotions, and passions that are deliberately spread throughout the work, leading it toward a powerful vitalist plea in which the beauty of existence and the ethic of caring for others prevail over monstrosity and moral abjection. All of this is far from sermons or preaching, but rather through a questioning of the characters' beliefs and disbeliefs."" — Domingo Ródenas de Moya, El País ""Aside from My Heart, All is Well tells the story of characters who speak to us about what truly matters. Their naturalness and generosity stay with us. We continue to speak to them."" — Alonso Cueto, Latin American Literature Today ""I store up what I have read by Héctor Abad like spherical, polished, luminous little balls of bread, ready for when I have to walk through a vast forest in the nighttime."" — Manuel Rivas ""Héctor Abad has written a tragic and unforgettable story."" — J. M. Coetzee on Oblivion ""A moving immersion into the inferno of Colombian political violence, into the life and soul of the city of Medellín, into the private life and public courage of a family, a true story that is also a superb fiction due to the way it is written and constructed, and one of the most eloquent arguments written in our time or any time against terror as an instrument of political action."" — Mario Vargas Llosa on Oblivion ""A family memoir that deserves classic status . . . [Abad] not only pays radiant homage to a hero but champions the path of peaceful change he so steadfastly took."" — Boyd Tonkin on Oblivion, The Independent ""This is a book that quietly knows what it is to be human, and to bridge, or reconcile, the gap between body and mind."" — Nicholas Lezard on Recipes for Sad Women, The Guardian ""The Farm is a treasure… With this novel, which deals with a seemingly local theme—the residents’ love for the land and the colonization of the town of Jericó—Héctor Abad gives us a universal work that explores the attachments that enslave human beings, who, to preserve them, are willing to risk everything."" — El Espectador on The Farm

Author Information

Héctor Abad was born in Medellín, Colombia in 1958. At the age of twenty-one, Abad won the Colombian National Short Story Prize, and has twice won the Símon Bolívar Prize for journalism. In 1987, his father was murdered by Colombian paramilitaries, an event he reflected on 20 years later in Oblivion: A Memoir (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012), which earned widespread critical acclaim as well as the WOLA-Duke Book Award. After his father's death, Abad was forced into exile, moving first to Spain and then to Italy. He studied Modern Languages and Literature at the University of Turin. His translations from the Italian include works by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and Umberto Eco. Abad's books have been translated into more than fifteen languages, including Anne McLean's translation of The Farm, which Archipelago published in 2018. Anne McLean studied history in London, Ontario, and literary translation in London, England, and now lives in Toronto, where she translates Latin American and Spanish novels, short stories, memoirs, and other writings by authors including Héctor Abad, Javier Cercas, Julio Cortázar, and Juan Gabriel Vásquez. Recent translations include Until August by Gabriel García Márquez (Knopf) and a co-translation with Victor Meadowcroft of Evelio Rosero’s Way Far Away (New Directions).

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