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Oblivion is a heartbreaking, exquisitely written memorial to the author's father, Héctor Abad Gómez, whose criticism of the Colombian regime led to his murder by paramilitaries in 1987. Twenty years in the writing, it paints an unforgettable picture of a man who followed his conscience and paid for it with his life during one of the darkest periods in Latin America's recent history.
Saint or sinner? Moralist or scoundrel? Ascetic or voluptuary? The reader must draw his or her own conclusions as Don Gregorio Benjamin Gaspar de Medina, aging memoirist and protagonist, offers up for scrutiny the events of his checkered life and the substance of his diverse opinions. His narrative begins at the age of 15 at his family's Colombian countryside villa, when he simultaneously discovers that he is wealthy and that kisses are not shared only with the lips. Six decades later in Vienna, the story culminates with his marriage to the delectable Cunegonde Bonaventura, his erstwhile secretary and transcriber of his memoirs.
A book of ambiguous genre and delicate, playful wisdom, Recipes for Sad Women is not a novel and not a cookbook. But should you wish to know what food to prepare in the case of sobbing or of nervousness, what the closest thing to dinosaur meat is (and therefore the best remedy for guilt), or what to eat when you are perfectly healthy and enjoying reciprocated love, you will find no better collection of recipes on the market. An acclaimed novelist, essayist, journalist and translator, Abad's eccentric, sensual and wry guide is neither unserious, nor entirely plausible in its advice. Elegant, melancholic, funny and full of morsels of insight, it is deftly and movingly instructional on the proper appreciation of sadness.
'Oblivion' is a memorial to the author's father, Hector Abad Gomez, whose criticism of the Colombian regime led to his murder by paramilitaries in 1987."
Oblivion is a heartbreaking tribute to the author's father, Hector Abad Gomez, whose criticism of the Colombian regime led to his murder by paramilitaries in 1987. Twenty years in the writing, it paints an unforgettable picture of a man who followed his conscience and paid for it with his life during one of the darkest periods in Latin America's recent history. Transcending the political, it also shines as one of the most exquisitely written accounts of profound love between a father and son that modern literature has to offer.
Aguliar returns home after a four-day business trip to discover that his beloved wife has gone mad. Desperate to rescue Agustina from her sudden, devastating insanity, Aguliar delves back into her shadowy past. Other narratives are intertwined with his frantic search for the truth; that of Midas, a flamboyant drug-trafficker and Agustina's former lover, and Agustina's splintered memories of her own troubled childhood. The key to her madness lies buried deep in a Colombian story of money, power and corruption.
Closely knit Colombian siblings' internal rifts threaten to tear apart the hard-won legacy their father fought to establish against guerilla and paramilitary violence. An intimate and transgressive novel that confirms Héctor Abad as one of the great writers of Latin American literature today. Pilar, Eva, and Antonio Ángel are the last heirs of La Oculta, a farm hidden in the mountains of Colombia. The land has survived several generations. It is the landscape of their happiest memories but it is also where they have had to face the siege of violence and terror, restlessness and flight. In The Farm, Héctor Abad illuminates the vicissitudes of a family and of a people, as well as of the voices of these three siblings, recounting their loves, fears, desires, and hopes, all against a dazzling backdrop. We enter their lives at the moment when they are about to lose the paradise on which they built their dreams and their reality.
A collection of photographs concentrating on the erotic appeal of the torero. Apart from beautiful boys in (and out) of their trajes de luces, the collection is interesting for concentrating on very young toreros from South America and Spain.
"The Armies by Evelio Rosero, a story of love, violence, and war, is a modern classic." "Ismail, the profesor, is a retired teacher in the small, fictional Colombian town of San Jose. He passes the days pretending to pick oranges while spying on his neighbor Geraldina as she lies naked in the shade of a ceiba tree. The garden burns with sunlight; the macaws laugh sweetly. Otilia, Ismail's wife, is ashamed of him and suggests that he pay a visit to Father Albornoz, who was once his student. Instead the profesor wanders the town visiting old friends, plagued by a tangle of secret memories: Where have I existed these years? I answer myself: up on the wall, peering over." "When guerrillas and paramilitaries suddenly invade the town, Ismail's reveries gradually give way to a living hell. His wife disappears and he must find her. We learn that not only gentle, grassy hillsides surround San Jose, but also land mines and coca. The profesor's voyeuristic ramblings are engulfed by the hallucinatory violence of Rosero's narrative, which is suffused not only with a deep sadness but also with an extraordinary tenderness." --Book Jacket.
A brilliant debut from 'one of the most original new voices of Latin American literature' (Mario Vargas Llosa) 'For anyone who has read the entire works of Gabriel García Márquez, The Informers is a thrilling new discovery' Colm Toibin, Guardian 'One of this year's outstanding books' Financial Times When Gabriel Santoro publishes his first book, a biography of a Jewish family friend who fled Germany for Colombia shortly before World War Two, it never occurs to him that his father will write a devastating review in a national newspaper. Why does he attack him so viciously? Do the pages of his book unwittingly hide some dangerous secret? As Gabriel sets out to discover what lies behind his father's anger, he finds himself undertaking an examination of the guilt and complicity at the heart of Colombian society, as one treacherous act perpetrated in those dark days returns with a vengeance half a century later.