Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Vásquez's captivating, disquieting account of a writer's journey through the shadowy terrain of his country's past dynamically illustrates how violence damages survivors, lies erode society, and fiction can convey truths history omits." - Publishers Weekly

"Like any conspiracy theory, it's overly thick with information, but Vásquez successfully gives it a novelistic shape. A fine work of art about the blurry line between truth and artifice." - Kirkus

"Juan Gabriel Vásquez's latest and most ambitious novel... A dazzlingly choreographed network of echoes and mirrorings." - Times Literary Supplement (UK)

"[A] clever, labyrinthine, thoroughly enjoyable historical novel." - The Guardian (UK)

"With utmost skill, Vásquez has us accompany him in his detective work, proposing a reflection on ghosts from the past and the inheritance of blame, doubt and fear." - El País (Spain)

"Absolutely hypnotic, a display of tense, agile, intelligent narrative, it takes conspiracy to a whole other level." - El Cultural (Spain)

"A reinventor of Latin American literature in the 21st century." - Jonathan Franzen

"Juan Gabriel Vásquez's The Shape of the Ruins is a highly sophisticated, fast-moving political thriller set in Colombia and an excellent read." - Alan Furst

"One of the great novels of recent years." - Mario Vargas Llosa

The information about The Shape of the Ruins shown above was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's online-magazine that keeps our members abreast of notable and high-profile books publishing in the coming weeks. In most cases, the reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author of this book and feel that the reviews shown do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, please send us a message with the mainstream media reviews that you would like to see added.

Juan Gabriel Vásquez's previous books include the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award winner and national bestseller, The Sound of Things Falling, as well as the award-winning Reputations, The Informers, The Secret History of Costaguana, and the story collection Lovers on All Saints' Day. Vásquez's novels have been published in twenty-eight languages worldwide. After sixteen years in France, Belgium, and Spain, he now lives in Bogotá.

Anne McLean translates Latin American and Spanish novels, short stories, memoirs, and other writings. She has twice won both the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Premio Valle Inclán, and received the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award with Juan Gabriel Vásquez for his novel The Sound of Things Falling. She lives in Toronto.

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