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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Oct 2019, 224 pages
Paperback:
Aug 2020, 224 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Karen Lewis
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Told with gripping intensity, It Would be Night in Caracas chronicles one woman's desperate battle to survive amid the dangerous, sometimes deadly, turbulence of modern Venezuela and the lengths she must go to secure her future.
In Caracas, Venezuela, Adelaida Falcon stands over an open grave. Alone, except for harried undertakers, she buries her mother–the only family Adelaida has ever known.
Numb with grief, Adelaida returns to the apartment they shared. Outside the window that she tapes shut every night―to prevent the tear gas raining down on protesters in the streets from seeping in. When looters masquerading as revolutionaries take over her apartment, Adelaida resists and is beaten up. It is the beginning of a fight for survival in a country that has disintegrated into violence and anarchy, where citizens are increasingly pitted against each other. But as fate would have it, Adelaida is given a gruesome choice that could secure her escape.
Filled with riveting twists and turns, and told in a powerful, urgent voice, It Would Be Night in Caracas is a chilling reminder of how quickly the world we know can crumble.
Excerpt
It Would Be Night In Caracas
We buried my mother with her things: her blue dress, her black flats, and her multifocals. We couldn't say goodbye in any other way, couldn't take those things from her. It would have been like returning her to the earth incomplete. We buried it all, because after her death we were left with nothing. Not even each other. That day we were struck down with exhaustion. She in her wooden box; I on a chair in the dilapidated chapel, the only one available of the five or six I tried for the wake. I could hire it for only three hours. Instead of funeral parlors, the city now had furnaces. People went in and out like loaves of bread, which were in short supply on the shelves but rained down in our memory whenever hunger overcame us.
If I still say "we" when I talk about that day it's out of habit, for the years welded us together like two parts of a sword we could use to defend each other. Writing out the inscription for her headstone, I understood that ...
It Would Be Night in Caracas offers provocative reading for book groups and will appeal to fans of contemporary Latin American fiction. Sainz Borgo's clear, poetic prose and richly textured account of Venezuelan history deliver a remarkable panorama of a country, a city, and a life on the verge of violent change. High stakes combined with a series of dramatic reversals in fortune propel the novel to a satisfying, if unexpected, conclusion...continued
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(Reviewed by Karen Lewis).
Fernando Aramburu
The voice of a conscience…Dry, concise, direct, with an extraordinary stirring force…Sainz Borgo's novel is simply masterful.
In the novel It Would Be Night in Caracas, protagonist Adelaida endures food scarcity in Venezuela's capital city, Caracas, while recalling favorite foods from happier times. Venezuela—situated along the Caribbean Sea in South America —is home to a vibrant blend of culinary traditions. The country's cuisine has European, African, and indigenous influences that make it irresistible. As with much of Latin America, maize (corn) is a staple of the country. Other popular local crops include plantains, coconut, avocado, mango, guava, citrus, and passion fruit. A few of the nation's most prominent ingredients and dishes include the following:
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