Literature

Juan Gabriel Vasquez
15h30 | Riverside Studios

One of the leading lights of Colombia’s post-Marquez generation, Juan Gabriel Vasquez will be reading from his highly acclaimed novel Los Informantes before talking to one of Britain’s leading lights of the post-Ishiguro generation, the IMPAC short-listed author Peter Hobbs about the agony and the ecstasy of the writing process.

About Juan Gabriel Vasquez

Juan Gabriel Vásquez is the author of a collection of stories Los Amantes de Todos los Santos (Alfaguara, 2001) and two novels, Los informantes (Alfaguara, 2004) and Historia Secreta de Costaguana (Alfaguara, 2007). Los Informantes received unanimous praise from critics and is being translated in England, France and Holland. Historia secreta de Costaguana (Alfaguara, 2007) has also received praise: ‘a great novel’ (Rafael Conte, Babelia); ‘one of the great surprises of recent years’ (J.A. Masoliver Ródenas, La Vanguardia); ‘novels such as this one make one feel proud of this profession’ (Eusebi Lahoz, El Periódico); ‘one of those pleasures that only come around every so often’ (Marcelo Figueras, El Boomeran).

His stories have appeared in anthologies from Germany, France, Spain and Colombia. Between 1996 and 1998 he lived in Paris and studied Latin American Literature at the Sorbonne; and at the end of 1999, after a year in the Belgian Ardennes, he settled in Barcelona. He has translated works by John Hersey, Victor Hugo and E.M. Forster, amongst others, and his articles appear regularly in Spanish and Latin American publications.

About Los Informantes (The Informers)

Translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean

Gabriel Santoro becomes estranged from his father when the latter criticises his son’s first book about the flight of Jewish immigrants from Nazi Germany to Bogotá in the 1930s. The conflict between father and son, their subsequent reconciliation and the mysterious death of the father lead the reader into an examination of the betrayal, guilt and obsession at the heart of Colombian society in World War II, when blacklists of German immigrants were circulated, destroying countless lives. Half a century later, this moral dilemma re-emerges with a vengeance, in a gripping narrative that unpacks like a set of Russian dolls.

With a tightly-honed plot, deftly-crafted situations, and a complex cast of characters, The Informers is a fascinating novel of fathers and sons, betrayal and the quest for redemption in a secular, cynical world.