English PEN Award winner Juan Gabriel Vásquez has just published his fifth novel The Shape of the Ruins, translated from Spanish by Anne MacLean. Simultaneously criminal investigation, historical narrative and auto-fiction, this highly sophisticated, fast-moving political thriller set in Colombia is his most ambitious, challenging and rewarding novel yet. Alejandro Zambra, the awardwinning Chilean writer whose first novel was heralded as the dawn of a new age in Chilean literature, has just published My Documents - part a collection of short stories, part a novel in fragments - and Not To Read, a volume of chronicles and literary essays. Both are translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell. My Documents evokes the disenchantments of youth and the disillusions of maturity in a Chilean society still troubled by its recent past. Hear these two writers, both of whom bring Balzac’s belief that ‘the novel is the private history of nations’ to life. The event will be chaired by writer Dominique Cleary.
The event will be chaired by writer Dominique Cleary
Presented in association with the Embassy of Chile in Ireland, supported by National Library of Ireland