"e;Like Bola o, V squez is a master stylist and a virtuoso of patient pacing and intricate structure"e; LEV GROSSMAN, Time Magazine"e;Juan Gabriel V squez . . . has succeeded Garc a M rquez as the literary grandmaster of Colombia"e; ARIEL DORFMAN, New York Review of BooksA morally complex, searing set of stories by the award-winning author of The Sound of Things Falling and The Shape of the Ruins (shortlisted for the Booker International Prize 2019).A renowned photographer probes a traumatic incident in the life of a fellow guest at a countryside ranch. A chance meeting at a regimental reunion obliges a Korean War veteran to confront a shameful secret. And in the title story, an internet search for a book published in 1887 leads to the discovery of the life of a remarkable woman: Aurelia de L on, who arrives in Colombia as a child orphan of the Great War, but as a free-spirited adult runs foul of her adoptive country's deep conservatism.The characters in Songs for the Flames are all men and women touched by violence - sometimes directly, sometimes tangentially - but the lives of all of them are irrevocably changed by the experience.Translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean
Being economical with the truth allows a photographer to understand something of which she would have preferred to have remained ignorant.
A chance meeting at a regimental reunion obliges a veteran of the Korean War to confront his past. A walk-on part in a Polanski film finds the narrator searching the director's face for signs of the aftermath of Sharon Tate's murder.
The internet search for a book published in 1887, leads a writer to discover the life of a passionate woman.
The characters in Songs for the Flames are men and women touched by violence - sometimes directly, sometimes only tangentially - but whose lives are changed forever by an unexpected encounter or by the operation of incomprehensible forces. Sixteen years after his first collection, Juan Gabriel Vásquez returns to the form with an outstanding set of nine morally complex stories, fresh proof of his narrative versatility and his profound understanding of the lives of others.
