3 New books From South of the Border

We all only have so much time to read & as our Canvas Bag says: So Many Books, So Little Time.
So I thought I would offer up some new books, just released that are quick, intense, & newly translated into English...

The first author is Horacio Castellanos Moya, author of Senselessness, She-Devil in the Mirror (both from New Directions) & Dance With Snakes (Biblioasis). We are lucky that in the past year these three of his novels have now been translated into English.

Roberto Bolaño says of Castellanos Moya: The acid humor of Horacio Castellanos Moya, resembling that of a Buster Keaton movie or a time-bomb, threatens the hormonal stability of imbeciles, who when they read him feel the irrepressible desire to hang the author in the town square. I can't think of a higher honour for a real writer.

I think out of She-Devil & Dance With Snakes I choose She-Devil as my favorite but they are both very quick, twisted reads that will make you smile & shiver at the same time. Senselessness will be an upcoming post as it will be my new staff-favorite soon.




The Armies is another new novel by Colombian author Evelio Rosero & is also a New Directions Paperback that has just been released. At 215 pages it is a quick & powerful read. It is NOT a lighthearted read though. Rosero deftly & masterfully tells the tales of a fictional town in Columbia from the viewpoint of Ismail, a retired teacher, who spends his days spying on his neighbor.

Soon the town is overrun by the violence that plagued Colombia for so long.

The Armies also just won the the Independent's Foreign Fiction Prize for excellence in translation.