The Sound of Things Falling
Juan Gabriel Vásquez
Winner of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
Winner of the Alfaguara Prize
Winner of the Gregor von Rezzori Prize
'A powerful, humane novel about a man trying to make sense of a war he didn’t choose to fight' The Times
'The story is compelling but through Vásquez’s vivid prose (rendered brilliantly into English by the award-winning translator Anne McLean) it also becomes haunting … A poignant and perturbing tale about the inheritance of fear in a country scrabbling to regain its soul' Financial Times
No sooner does he get to know Ricardo Laverde in a seedy billiard hall in Bogotá than Antonio Yammara realises that the ex-pilot has a secret. Antonio's fascination with his new friend's life grows until the day Ricardo receives a mysterious, unmarked cassette.
Shortly afterwards, he is shot dead on a street corner.
Yammara's investigation into what happened leads back to the early 1960s, marijuana smuggling and a time before the cocaine trade trapped Colombia in a living nightmare.
Product Details
About Juan Gabriel Vásquez
Reviews for The Sound of Things Falling
Kate Saunders, The Times
The story is compelling but through Vásquez’s vivid prose (rendered brilliantly into English by the award-winning translator Anne McLean) it also becomes haunting … A poignant and perturbing tale about the inheritance of fear in a country scrabbling to regain its soul
Financial Times
Compelling ... He holds his narrative together with admirable stylistic control as he shows a world falling apart and the powers of love and language to rebuild it
Anita Sethi, Observer
A compelling and original psychological thriller
Daily Telegraph
Excellent ... Vasquez follows Balzac's maxim that "novels are the private history of nations"
Alastair Smart
Sunday Telegraph
A gripping novel, absorbing right to the end
Edmund White, New York Times Book Review
The narrative escalates, the mystery deepens, and the scope of the story widens with each page. This terrific novel draws on Colombia’s tragic history and cycles of violence to tell the story of a troubled man trying to come to grips with the distant forces and events that have shaped his life
Khaled Hosseini, Books of the Year 2013