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by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel
By Night The Mountain Burns recounts the narrator's
childhood on a remote island off the West African
coast, living with his mysterious grandfather, several
mothers and no fathers. We learn of a dark chapter in
the island's history: a bush fire destroys the crops, then
hundreds perish in a cholera outbreak. Superstition
dominates: now the islanders must sacrifice their
possessions to the enraged ocean god. What of their
lives will they manage to save?
Whitmanesque in its lyrical evocation of the island,
Ávila Laurel's writing builds quietly, through the oral
rhythms of traditional storytelling, into gripping drama
worthy of an Achebe or a García Márquez.
"Ávila Laurel's novel tells of survival in fierce isolation, a place where the ocean provides the only horizon and is a source of the greatest hopes and the most awful fears." - Alfonso Carnicero Izquierdo
"It has fallen to Ávila Laurel to be the chronicler of Annobón, just as Derek Walcott is for St Lucia, VS Naipaul for Trinidad and Edwidge Danticat is for Haiti. To this list must now be added the name of Annobón, half-evoked and half-dreamed in Ávila Laurel's unique language." - JM Pedrosa
"The Equatorial Guinean novel that has perhaps captivated me the most is By Night The Mountain Burns by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel. It is a story of great mystery, but also a testimonial to life on Annobón Island. This real-life island seems to emerge from the sea like some Atlantic legend, but the harsh conditions to which the islanders have been subjected mean we're a long way from charming tales of mariners and mermaids. In these large-leaved green forests, the horror stories are all too real" - Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, El País
This information about By Night the Mountain Burns was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel was born in 1966 in Equatorial Guinea. By Night The Mountain Burns is based on his memories of growing up on the remote island of Annobón.
He made headlines in 2011 by embarking on a hunger strike, in an anti-government protest. He now lives exiled in Barcelona.
Jethro Soutar translates from Spanish and Portuguese. He has translated Argentinian and Brazilian crime novels, written two non-fiction books of his own, and recently co-edited The Football Crónicas, a collection of football writing from Latin America. He divides his time between London and Lisbon.
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