Overview

"""A potent mixture of history, fiction and literary gamesmanship."" —Los Angeles Times ""A cunning tribute to a classic."" —Wall Street Journal ""[A] post-modern literary revenge story.” —The New York Times An ingenious novel of historical invention from the global literary star author of The Sound of Things Falling. On the day of Joseph Conrad's death in 1924, the Colombian-born José Altamirano begins to write and cannot stop. Many years before, he confessed to Conrad his life's every delicious detail—from his country's heroic revolutions to his darkest solitary moments. Those intimate recollections became Nostromo, a novel that solidified Conrad’s fame and turned Altamirano’s reality into a work of fiction. Now Conrad is dead, but the slate is by no means clear—Nostromo will live on and Altamirano must write himself back into existence. As the destinies of real empires collide with the murky realities of imagined ones, Vásquez takes us from a flourishing twentieth-century London to the lawless fury of a blooming Panama and back in a labyrinthine quest to reclaim the past—of both a country and a man."

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9781594485824

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Reviews

Praise for The Secret History of Costaguana<br> <br> Audacious...a potent mixture of history, fiction and literary gamesmanship. -- Los Angeles Times<br><br> An exceptional new novel. -- The Wall Street Journal <br><br>Praise for Juan Gabriel Vasquez<br><br> One of the most original new voices of Latin American literature. -- Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature<br><br> Remarkable . . . Immensely entertaining . . . The best work of literary fiction to come my way since 2005. --Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post<br><br> One hallmark of a gifted novelist is the ability to see the potential for compelling fiction in an incident, anecdote or scrap of history. . . . By that standard and several others, the career of Juan Gabriel Vasquez . . . is off to a notable start. --Larry Rohter, The New York Times

Praise for The Secret History of Costaguana Audacious...a potent mixture of history, fiction and literary gamesmanship. -- Los Angeles Times An exceptional new novel. -- The Wall Street Journal Praise for Juan Gabriel Vasquez One of the most original new voices of Latin American literature. -- Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Remarkable . . . Immensely entertaining . . . The best work of literary fiction to come my way since 2005. --Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post One hallmark of a gifted novelist is the ability to see the potential for compelling fiction in an incident, anecdote or scrap of history. . . . By that standard and several others, the career of Juan Gabriel Vasquez . . . is off to a notable start. --Larry Rohter, The New York Times

Praise for The Secret History of Costaguana Audacious...a potent mixture of history, fiction and literary gamesmanship. -- Los Angeles Times An exceptional new novel. --The Wall Street Journal Praise for Juan Gabriel V squez One of the most original new voices of Latin American literature. -- Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Remarkable . . . Immensely entertaining . . . The best work of literary fiction to come my way since 2005. --Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post One hallmark of a gifted novelist is the ability to see the potential for compelling fiction in an incident, anecdote or scrap of history. . . . By that standard and several others, the career of Juan Gabriel V squez . . . is off to a notable start. --Larry Rohter, The New York Times

Praise for The Secret History of Costaguana Audacious...a potent mixture of history, fiction and literary gamesmanship. - Los Angeles Times An exceptional new novel. -The Wall Street Journal Praise for Juan Gabriel Vasquez One of the most original new voices of Latin American literature. - Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Remarkable . . . Immensely entertaining . . . The best work of literary fiction to come my way since 2005. -Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post One hallmark of a gifted novelist is the ability to see the potential for compelling fiction in an incident, anecdote or scrap of history. . . . By that standard and several others, the career of Juan Gabriel Vasquez . . . is off to a notable start. -Larry Rohter, The New York Times

Praise for The Secret History of Costaguana Audacious a potent mixture of history, fiction and literary gamesmanship. Los Angeles Times An exceptional new novel. The Wall Street Journal Praise for Juan Gabriel Vasquez One of the most original new voices of Latin American literature. Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Remarkable . . . Immensely entertaining . . . The best work of literary fiction to come my way since 2005. Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post One hallmark of a gifted novelist is the ability to see the potential for compelling fiction in an incident, anecdote or scrap of history. . . . By that standard and several others, the career of Juan Gabriel Vasquez . . . is off to a notable start. Larry Rohter, The New York Times

Praise for The Secret History of Costaguana Audacious...a potent mixture of history, fiction and literary gamesmanship. -- Los Angeles Times An exceptional new novel. -- The Wall Street Journal Praise for Juan Gabriel VAsquez One of the most original new voices of Latin American literature. -- Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Remarkable . . . Immensely entertaining . . . The best work of literary fiction to come my way since 2005. --Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post One hallmark of a gifted novelist is the ability to see the potential for compelling fiction in an incident, anecdote or scrap of history. . . . By that standard and several others, the career of Juan Gabriel VAsquez . . . is off to a notable start. --Larry Rohter, The New York Times

Author Information

Juan Gabriel Vásquez's previous books include the Dublin Literary Award winner and national bestseller, The Sound of Things Falling, as well as the International Booker finalist The Shape of the Ruins, the award-winning novels The Informers, The Secret History of Costaguana, and the story collections Songs for the Flames and Lovers on All Saints' Day. Vásquez's novels have been published in twenty-eight languages worldwide. After sixteen years in France, Belgium, and Spain, he now lives in Bogotá. Anne McLean translates Latin American and Spanish novels, short stories, memoirs, and other writings. She has twice won both the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Premio Valle Inclán, and received the Dublin Literary Award with Juan Gabriel Vásquez for his novel The Sound of Things Falling. She lives in Toronto.

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