| Translator | |
|---|---|
| Genre | |
| Pages | 196 |
| US ISBN | 978-1-64286-145-7 |
| Ebook ISBN | 978-1-64286-146-4 |
| Region | |
| US publication date | February 4, 2025 |
| UK publication date | February 4, 2025 |
| Price | $19.99 |
| Author |
Río Muerto
$19.99
Reminiscent of Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, this novel tackles the topic of paramilitarism and violence in Colombia when a father of two sons is killed a few steps from his home in a small town.
On the outskirts of Belén del Chamí, a town that has yet to appear on any map of Colombia, the mute Salomón Palacios is murdered a few steps away from his home. His widow, the courageous and foul-mouthed Hipólita Arenas, completely loses her sanity and confronts the paramilitaries and local politicians, challenging them to also kill her and her two fatherless sons. Yet as Hipólita faces her husband’s murderers on her desperate journey, she finds an unexpected calling to stay alive. This poetic and hypnotizing novel, told from the perspective of Salomón’s ghost, denounces the brutal killings of innocent citizens and at the same time celebrates the invisible: imagination, memories, hope, and the connection to afterlife.
Details
Author
RICARDO SILVA ROMERO is one of Colombia’s most beloved writers. He is a prolific novelist, columnist, journalist, screenwriter, and film critic. In 2007 he was selected as one of the Bogotá39, a list of the best young writers in Latin America. Río Muerto is a Silva Romero’s first book to be published in English. Read more
Book Club Questions
Book Club Questions
Press Quotes
Press Quotes
Praise for Río Muerto
“In this novel, Silva Romero explores with clarity and precision the way violence weighs on a society like Colombia, which seems to have naturalized it in a disturbing way.” —ADN Bogotá
“Written in visceral prose.” —El Tiempo (Colombia)
“A book that will persist as a key representative of literature dealing with the violence that devastated this country during the armed conflict.” —El Espectador (Colombia)
“Río Muerto is a portrait of Colombia turned into a book, a work we should have in our homes and read with our families instead of watching the news bulletins. (…) This short novel by Ricardo Silva Romero encapsulates a hope beyond the kind revealed in the story itself: the kind of hope that reflects the power of contemporary Colombian fiction to convert the horror of war into literary art.” —Diario de Paz Colombia
“In Río Muerto, Ricardo Silva Romero recreates in poetic and intense prose another side of the horror of our era.” —Abisinia Review (Colombia)
Río Muerto - The Playlist
Río Muerto - The Playlist
“La creciente” by Rafael Orozco y El Binomio de Oro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g1O38ycIVc
“Sopa de caracol” by Banda Blanca https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkQmrPXwSNU
“Tu pum pum” by El General https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNWRCWkRr84
“Gracias a la vida” by Violeta Parra https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w67-hlaUSIs
“Si no te hubieras ido” by Marco Antonio Solís https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH8oCh1nn88
Translator
Translator
Victor Meadowcroft is a translator from Spanish and Portuguese and a graduate of the University of East Anglia’s master’s programme in literary translation. His published translations include stories by Agustina Bessa-Luís in Take Six: Six Portuguese Women Writers (co-translation with Margaret Jull Costa, Dedalus Books, 2018) and Toño the Infallible by Evelio Rosero (co-translation with Anne McLean, New Directions, 2022), which was shortlisted for the PEN Translation Prize in 2023 and longlisted for the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute of Translation Prize in the same year. His translation of Natalia García Freire’s This World Does Not Belong to Us was published by World Editions in 2022 and was shortlisted for the TA First Translation Prize and the Premio Valle Inclán. Read more
