The latest addition to my website is Marvel Moreno‘s En diciembre llegaban las brisas (December Breeze). Marvel Moreno tells a series of interlinked stories, many of which show the cruelty of men towards women. Colombia is clearly a very patriarchal society and many of the women in this book suffer under it, with the men … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Tomás González‘s La luz difícil (Difficult Light). It is narrated by David, a Colombian painter. While he and his family, were living in New York, his son, Jacobo had a terrible car accident, leaving him in permanent and agonising pain. Jacobo decides that he cannot go on living … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Juan Cárdenas‘ Ornamento (Ornamental). This is another dystopian novel from Latin America, this one from Colombia. Our unnamed narrator is testing a new drug on four women (it only works on women) and while three sleep through the test but later report a pleasurable sensation, one, known only … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Héctor Abad Faciolince‘s Basura [Rubbish]. The unnamed narrator moves into a flat and sees that one of his fellow residents is Bernardo Davanzati, who published a couple of novels some time ago but has now seemingly disappeared. While looking in the rubbish for a magazine he mistakenly threw … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Germán Espinosa‘s Sinfonía desde el nuevo mundo [Symphony from the New World]. It tells the story of Victorien Fontenier, a French army officer who has fled from Waterloo after the defeat and, at the suggestion of his prospective father-in-law, goes off to Jamaica to deliver guns to Haiti. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Santiago Gamboa‘s Necrópolis (Necropolis). This is one of the two of his novels that has been translated into English. The narrator, known only as EH, is a Colombian writer just recovering from a long, serious illness, who is invited to a conference held by the International Congress on … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Santiago Gamboa‘s Vida feliz de un joven llamado Esteban [Happy Life of a Young Man Called Esteban]. This is a quasi-autobiographical novel (i.e. told in an autobiographical style, with some autobiographical references). We follow the life of Esteban Hinestroza, a young man who is currently working as journalist … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Santiago Gamboa‘s Perder es cuestión de método [Losing is a Question of Method]. This is a detective novel, set in Bogota. Our hero is Victor Silanpa, a journalist. He learns of a body being found outside of Bogotá. The victim has been impaled. The police seem to be … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jorge Franco‘s El mundo de afuera [The World Outside], the winner of the prestigious Spanish Alfaguara Prize this year. This is an excellent novel, mainly set in Franco’s home town of Medellín, Colombia and mainly involving the kidnapping of a rich man, Don Diego Echavarría Misa. Don Diego … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Efraim Medina Reyes‘ Técnicas de masturbación entre Batman y Robin [Techniques of Masturbation between Batman and Robin]. Having just read La vita erotica dei superuomini (Erotic Lives of the Superheroes), this book seemed a natural follow-up. However, masturbation, Batman and Robin barely feature in this novel and the … Read more