The Sound of Things Falling

One of NPR's 6 Best Books of the Summer

Esquire recommends The Sound of Things Falling “if you read only one book this month”

Starred early reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Library Journal, and Kirkus

Lauded by Jonathan Franzen, E. L. Doctorow and many others

From a global literary star comes a prize-winning tour de force — an intimate portrayal of the drug wars in Colombia.

Juan Gabriel Vásquez has been hailed not only as one of South America's greatest literary stars, but also as one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation. In this gorgeously wrought, award-winning novel, Vásquez confronts the history of his home country, Colombia.

In the city of Bogotá, Antonio Yammara reads an article about a hippo that had escaped from a derelict zoo once owned by legendary Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. The article transports Antonio back to when the war between Escobar's Medellín cartel and government forces played out violently in Colombia's streets and in the skies above. Back then, Antonio witnessed a friend's murder, an event that haunts him still. As he investigates, he discovers the many ways in which his own life and his friends family have been shaped by his country's recent violent past. His journey leads him all the way back to the 1960s and a world on the brink of change: a time before narco-trafficking trapped a whole generation in a living nightmare.

Vásquez is “one of the most original new voices of Latin American literature,” according to Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa, and The Sound of Things Falling is his most personal, most contemporary novel to date, a masterpiece that takes his writing — and will take his literary star — even higher.

"Juan Gabriel Vasquez is a considerable writer. The Sound of Things Falling is an artful, ruminative mystery....And the reader comes away haunted by its strong playing out of an irreversible fate." E. L. Doctorow

"Compelling…genuine and magnificently written." Library Journal, Starred Review

“Literary magic of one of Latin Americas most talented novelists…a masterpiece.” Booklist, Starred Review

“An exploration in the ways in which stories profoundly impact our lives.” Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"If you only read one book this month..." Esquire

"Razor-sharp." O, the Oprah Magazine

“Vásquez creates characters whose memories resonate powerfully across an ingeniously interlocking structure…Vásquez creates a compelling literary work — one where an engaging narrative envelops poignant memories of a fraught historical period.” The New Republic

* National Bestseller and winner of the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
* Hailed by Edmund White as "a brilliant new novel" on the cover of the New York Times Book Review
* Lauded by Jonathan Franzen, E. L. Doctorow and many others
From a global literary star comes a prize-winning tour de force an intimate portrayal of the drug wars in Colombia.
Juan Gabriel Vasquez has been hailed not only as one of South America s greatest literary stars, but also as one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation. In this gorgeously wrought, award-winning novel, Vasquez confronts the history of his home country, Colombia.

In the city of Bogota, Antonio Yammara reads an article about a hippo that had escaped from a derelict zoo once owned by legendary Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. The article transports Antonio back to when the war between Escobar s Medellin cartel and government forces played out violently in Colombia s streets and in the skies above. Back then, Antonio witnessed a friend s murder, an event that haunts him still. As he investigates, he discovers the many ways in which his own life and his friend s family have been shaped by his country s recent violent past. His journey leads him all the way back to the 1960s and a world on the brink of change: a time before narco-trafficking trapped a whole generation in a living nightmare.

Vasquez is one of the most original new voices of Latin American literature, according to Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa, and The Sound of Things Falling is his most personal, most contemporary novel to date, a masterpiece that takes his writing and will take his literary star even higher.

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Juan Gabriel Vásquez is a critically acclaimed Colombian writer, translator, and award-winning author of a collection of stories Los amantes de Todos los Santos, as well as the novels Historia secreta de Costaguana and The Informers, which has been translated into seven languages. He has translated works by Victor Hugo, E.M Foster and John Hersey, among others, his essay “El arte de la distorsión” won the Premio Nacional Simón Bolívar, and he is a regular columnist for El Espectador, the newspaper of dissent in Bogotá. Educated in Colombia, and in Paris at the Sorbonne, he now lives and teaches in Barcelona, Spain with his wife and twin daughters.