---

A taut new novel by the award-winning author of The Sound of Things Falling - ´one of the most original voices of Latin American literature´, Mario Vargas Llosa

---

A taut new novel by the award-winning author of The Sound of Things Falling - ´one of the most original voices of Latin American literature´, Mario Vargas Llosa

´An affecting, carefully paced work of psychological realism´ Times Literary Supplement

As Colombia´s famed political cartoonist, Javier Mallarino, strolls through downtown Bogotá before a public celebration of his career in the grand Teatro Colón, he contemplates the start of his professional life; how he set down his oils and took up a pen to begin drawing caricatures for a living. But the celebration has far-reaching consequences: as he leaves the theatre a figure from his past, now a young woman, emerges from the crowd and forces Mallarino to confront an incident that took place in his home half a lifetime ago, calling into question his reputation and the value of his life´s work.

---

Vasquez´s prose, translated by Anne MacLean, is spare and effective, with a pleasing precision . A strong writer with a compelling vision Guardian

---

Anne McLean has translated works by many Spanish and Latin American authors including Hector Abad, Carmen Martín Gaite, Julio Cortázar, Ignacio Martínez de Pisón, Enrique Vila-Matas and Tomás Eloy Martínez. She lives in Toronto.

Juan Gabriel Vásquez was born in Bogotá in 1973. He studied Latin American literature at the Sorbonne, and has translated works by E. M. Forster and Victor Hugo, amongst others, into Spanish. His previous books have won the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Alfaguara Prize, the Gregor von Rezzori Prize, the Prix Roger Caillois and he has been shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Reputations was awarded the Royal Spanish Academy Prize in 2014. His books have been published in twenty-six languages and forty countries. After sixteen years in France, Belgium and Spain, he now lives in Bogotà.

Anne McLean has translated works by many Spanish and Latin American authors including Javier Cercas, Hector Abad, Carmen Martin Gaite, Julio Cortàzar, Ignacio Martínez de Pisòn, Enrique Vila-Matas and Tomàs Eloy Martínez. She lives in Toronto.

---