Overview

Over twenty years after his son's death, nearly blind and unable to paint, David turns to writing to examine the deep shades of his loss. Despite his acute pain, or perhaps because of it, David observes beauty in the ordinary: in the resemblance of a woman to Egyptian portraits, in the horseshoe crabs that wash up on Coney Island, in the foam gathering behind a ferry propeller; in these moments, Gonzalez reveals the world through a painter's eyes. From one of Colombia's greatest contemporary novelists, Difficult Light is a formally daring meditation on grief, written in candid, arresting prose.

Full Product Details

9781939810601

Table of Contents

Reviews

- Gonzalez's last two novels, Difficult Light and The Storm were both hailed as quiet masterpieces at the time of their publication in Colombia... Through all his work you find the peaceful writing that admirably traces the ugliness of the world; the confidence of the narrative voice, seemingly conventional while eschewing the straitjackets of realism... he has a mysterious ability to uplift the commonplace and turn it into unforgettable images through careful observation and sensuous detail. -- Juan Gabriel Vasquez, The Guardian - Tomas Gonzalez has the potential to become a classic of Latin American literature. -- Elfriede Jelinek, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature - Gonzalez invokes both Hemingway and Faulkner in his treatment of tortured family dynamics and laces the three-way banter in the boat with a fascinating, near-toxic atmosphere of machismo. -- Publisher's Weekly on The Storm - In Andrea Rosenberg's translation, the author's stylistic traits - short and pointed phrases, poetic descriptions and poetic monologues - shine and linger in the reader's ear... The Storm arrives as a welcome addition to the international recognition of one Colombia's most prolific and poetic writers. - Nicolas Llano, Asymptote Journal - Self-delusion, hallucinations, anger, volatility chafe against the soothing waters and the stars above, and Gonzalez, one of South America's most acclaimed and pitch-perfect novelists, plunges you into the brutality of man and nature alike. - Kerri Arsenault on The Storm - There is humor in the frequent revelation of self-delusions. There is also suspense as the storm - more interpersonal than weather-related - builds and breaks. Fabulist elements, lyrical prose, and a chorus of narrative voices give this slim novel depth and breadth. - Kirkus Reviews on The Storm

A very poetic reverie...This is in some ways a reflection on aging...and in others simply a picturesque and vivid remembrance of the moments that mattered in one person's life. At the bottom of it all is the narrator's unending grief over his son, Jacobo, paralyzed when a junkie driving a pickup truck struck the taxi he was riding in at the time...The book's narrative style is both modest and subdued, no doubt aided by Rosenberg, who previously translated the author's last work, The Storm (2018). -- Kirkus Reviews Gonzalez's last two novels, Difficult Light and The Storm were both hailed as quiet masterpieces at the time of their publication in Colombia... Through all his work you find the peaceful writing that admirably traces the ugliness of the world; the confidence of the narrative voice, seemingly conventional while eschewing the straitjackets of realism... he has a mysterious ability to uplift the commonplace and turn it into unforgettable images through careful observation and sensuous detail. -- Juan Gabriel Vasquez, The Guardian Tomas Gonzalez has the potential to become a classic of Latin American literature. -- Elfriede Jelinek, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Gonzalez invokes both Hemingway and Faulkner in his treatment of tortured family dynamics and laces the three-way banter in the boat with a fascinating, near-toxic atmosphere of machismo. -- Publisher's Weekly on The Storm In Andrea Rosenberg's translation, the author's stylistic traits - short and pointed phrases, poetic descriptions and poetic monologues - shine and linger in the reader's ear... The Storm arrives as a welcome addition to the international recognition of one Colombia's most prolific and poetic writers. - Nicolas Llano, Asymptote Journal Self-delusion, hallucinations, anger, volatility chafe against the soothing waters and the stars above, and Gonzalez, one of South America's most acclaimed and pitch-perfect novelists, plunges you into the brutality of man and nature alike. - Kerri Arsenault on The Storm There is humor in the frequent revelation of self-delusions. There is also suspense as the storm - more interpersonal than weather-related - builds and breaks. Fabulist elements, lyrical prose, and a chorus of narrative voices give this slim novel depth and breadth. - Kirkus Reviews on The Storm

Author Information

Tomás González was born in 1950 in Medellín, Colombia. He studied Philosophy before becoming a barman in a Bogotá nightclub, whose owner published his first novel in 1983. González has lived in Miami and New York, where he wrote much of his work while making a living as a translator. After twenty years in the US, he returned to Colombia, where he now lives. His books have been translated into six languages, and his previous novel, The Storm, was published by Archipelago with translator Andrea Rosenberg. Andrea Rosenberg is a translator from the Spanish and Portuguese and an editor of the Buenos Aires Review. Among her recent and forthcoming full-length translations are Inês Pedrosa's In Your Hands, Aura Xilonen's The Gringo Champion, Juan Gómez Bárcena's The Sky over Lima, and David Jiménez's Children of the Monsoon.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available