Two astonishing novellas, by 'Mexico's greatest novelist', in one volume.
Two astonishing novellas, by βMexicoβs greatest novelistβ, in one volume.
Hilarious and horrifying, Yuri Herreraβs The Transmigration of Bodies is a gritty, feverish novella, written in dazzling prose that is both bawdy and poetic. A plague has brought death to the city. Two feuding crime families with blood on their hands need our hard-boiled hero, The Redeemer, to broker peace. Both his instincts and the vacant streets warn him to stay indoors, but The Redeemer ventures out into the cityβs underbelly to arrange for the exchange of the bodies they hold hostage. Lust and crime and a lack of condoms all feature in this brilliant novella about living in a city filled with the dead, and where no one can distinguish between the guilty and the innocent.
A response to the violence of contemporary Mexico, with echoes of Romeo and Juliet, Roberto BolaΓ±o and Raymond Chandler, The Transmigration of Bodies is a noir tragedy and a tribute to those bodiesβloved, sanctified and defiledβthat violent crime has touched.
Signs Preceding the End of the World is a masterpiece, haunting and arresting, spare and poetic, a condensed epic about immigration. Yuri Herrera does not simply write about the border between Mexico and the United States and those who cross it. He explores the crossings and translations people make in their minds and language as they move from one country to another, especially when thereβs no going back.
Traversing this lonely territory is Makina, a young woman who knows only too well how to survive in a violent, macho world. Leaving behind her life in Mexico to search for her brother, she is smuggled into the USA carrying a pair of secret messagesβone from her mother and one from the Mexican underworld.
Short-listed for International Dublin Literary Award 2018 (Ireland)
“'Bracingly unbookish...The after-effect is more like that of a video game or Marvel comic, with both the brightness and unabashed flatness those entail. Darkly satisfying...A darkly satisfying tale.'”
βBracingly unbookishβ¦The after-effect is more like that of a video game or Marvel comic, with both the brightness and unabashed flatness those entail. Darkly satisfyingβ¦A darkly satisfying tale.β Guardian
βA novella in nine dramatic acts loaded with images, moments suspended in time that evolve into an extended dream, or rather a cautionary tale...The author of playful, prophetic, unnerving books that deserve to be read several times, with dialogue so telling it eats into your brain rather like the worm in the Redeemerβs preferred mescal, Herrera is a writer for our doomed epoch.β Irish Times
βHerrera's brilliantly surreal turns of phrase mirror the strangeness of the world: he knows that brutal everyday truths are best revealed through dreams. Blood-soaked, driven deep and expertly written.β Spectator
βHerrera combines lyricism with wry, black humour and employs a range of registers, colloquialisms and neologisms...In extraordinary prose he creates stark landscapes and surreal scenarios which remain with you long after the final pages...A major new talent.β Huffington Post
βYuri Herreraβs tiny, beautiful novels each conjure myth and metaphor from a contemporary experience in a precise location, transformed by archaic-colloquial prose.β Times Literary Supplement
βA wondrous mash-up of styles which works solely and splendidly due to Herreraβs sureness of touch.β New Internationalist
βAs with many great and weighty storytellers, itβs hard to avoid oxymorons while describing Herreraβs achievements.Β His stories have the impact and ambition of epics but clock in at around 100 pages.Β The Transmigration of BodiesΒ has gravity and insight, as well as historical and literary allusions, which override the zeitgeist and suggest something mythical.βΒ Big Issue
βHerreraβs prose is beyond hard-boiled: it's baked dry by the unrelenting desert sun, then picked clean by vultures.β Boston Review
βIn the vein of Frank Millerβs tale of crime and underworld, Sin City, and tinged with classic, yet ironic, Shakespearian tragedy.β Electric Literature
'Herrera switches rapidly between the tropesΒ ofΒ screwball comedy, hard-boiled thriller, apocalyptic fiction, and existential tragedyβ¦There's plenty to admire about this allegorical visionΒ ofΒ a country under lockdown, where violence and death have ceased to be the motors for fiction, instead becoming the backdropΒ ofΒ everyday life.β Bookforum
βMexicoβs Yuri Herrera is a rare thing: a writer to get truly excited aboutβ¦It is writing that is simultaneously concise and epic, dynamically plotted and intelligent, aware of literary heritage and stunningly originalβ¦This is stunning writing that demands and deserves attention.β Saturday Paper
βA splendid and magnificent readβ¦The language is an absolute tribute to the translator.β Radio New Zealand
β[The Transmigration of Bodies] captures the feel of the post-epidemic world with consummate ease: the paranoia and desperation are almost palpable.β BookMooch
βHerrera knows what he is talking about and says it as it is, with power and without restraint.β Otago Daily Times
βThereβs a weight to Herreraβs concise prose, more to extrapolate from his simple sentences than a first glance might imply. These two novellas are stunningly original pieces of work from a writer to watch.β -- Simon McDonald
βHerreraβs novella becomes a micro-epic, at once clear and ambiguous, transcultural, localised but applicable to countless sagas of migration across the globe. In scarcely more than one hundred pages, it encapsulates a story that is much bigger than itself.β
βThe border between the United States and Mexico is at the heart of this surreal, unsettling short novel whichβas the title might suggestβabounds with discomfiting and apocalyptic imagery. On one level, it tells a realistic story, in that its protagonist endeavors to cross the border into the United States in search of her missing brother. On another level, however, it tells a more primal one, turning its location and basic plotline from something contemporary to something elemental and mythical.β Lit Hub
βThe tales Herrera tells are very 21st centuryβ¦Beautifully crafted.β ABC Radio Brisbane
βThese two novels are a testament to the fine work that can come from a magnificent writer paired with a talented translatorβ¦This book will grip onto you tightly as you read, and stay with you long after youβve finished.βΒ Aurealis
Born in Actopan, Mexico, in 1970, Yuri Herrera studied Politics in Mexico, Creative Writing in El Paso and took his PhD in literature at Berkeley. His first novel to appear in English, Signs Preceding the End of the World, was published to critical acclaim in 2015 and included in many Best-of-Year lists. He is currently teaching at the University of Tulane, in New Orleans.
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