The_Secret_History_of_Costaguana_Juan_Gabriel_Vasquez
2012 Longlist

The Secret History of Costaguana

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ABOUT
THE BOOK

But when Nostromo is published the following year José is outraged by what he reads: ‘You’ve eliminated me from my own life. You, Joseph Conrad, have robbed me.’ I waved the Weekly in the air again, and then threw it down on his desk. ‘Here,’ I whispered, my back to the thief, ‘I do not exist.’ The Secret History of Costaguana, the second novel by Juan Gabriel Vásquez to be published in English, is José Altamirano’s riposte to Joseph Conrad. It is a big novel, tragic and despairing, comic and insightful by turns, told by a bumptious narrator with a score to settle. It is Latin America’s post-modern answer to Europe’s modernist vision. It is a superb, joyful, thoughtful and rumbustious novel that will establish Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s reputation as one of the leading novelists of his generation.

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Juan
Gabriel Vásquez

Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s previous books include the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award winner and national bestseller, The Sound of Things Falling, as well as the award-winning The Informers, The Secret History of Costaguana, and the story collection 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.

Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s previous books include the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award winner and national bestseller, The Sound of Things Falling, as well as the award-winning The Informers, The Secret History of Costaguana, and the story collection 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.

ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Anne
McLean

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 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award with Juan Gabriel Vásquez for his novel The Sound of Things Falling. She lives in Toronto.

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 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award with Juan Gabriel Vásquez for his novel The Sound of Things Falling. She lives in Toronto.

NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS

Premio Primavera de Novela 2009 – José Altamirano arrives in London in 1903 after witnessing civil war in a banana republic, when he meets Joseph Conrad, who is writing Nostromo.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Country
Colombia
Original Language
Spanish
Publisher
Bloomsbury Publishing
Translator
Anne McLean

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