"La idea de esta novela comenzó con una imagen de dos señoras amigas que de pronto una noche, de una manera impensada para ambas, viven una situación erótica. Luego se fue convirtiendo en una historia policial, casi un thriller, y el thriller se fue transformando en una especie de mural de la sociedad peruana en los últimos meses o semanas de la dictadura de Fujimori y Montesinos. Me gustó la idea de que la historia se llamase Cinco esquinas...

"In this novel, simultaneous plot lines ranging from an investigation by Corporal Lituma of a mysterious disappearance, to his deputy's love affair with a prostitute, to an Andean community terrorized by Shining Path guerrillas, and the alternating first- and third-person narrators all obscure coherence. Grossman's lazy translation needlessly retains large doses of original Spanish lexicon. An introduction, maps, and a translator's note are badly...

A Haunting tale of power, corruption, and the complex search for identity Conversation in The Cathedral takes place in 1950s Peru during the dictatorship of Manuel A. Odría. Over beers and a sea of freely spoken words, the conversation flows between two individuals, Santiago and Ambrosia, who talk of their tormented lives and of the overall degradation and frustration that has slowly taken over their town. Through a complicated web of secrets and...