Delirium by Laura Restrepo

Delirium by Laura Restrepo

Aguilar, an unemployed literature professor who has resorted to selling dog food for a living, returns home after a three-day business trip to discover that his wife, Agustina, has gone mad. He doesn't know what has happened during his absence, and in his search for answers, he slowly uncovers profound and shadowy secrets hidden deep in his wife's past. On one level, "Delirium" reads like a detective story, as the reader pieces together information to find out what caused Agustina's madness. But it is also a remarkably nuanced novel whose currents run much deeper, delving into the minds of four unique characters: Aguilar, a husband passionately in love with his wife and determined to rescue her from madness; Agustina, a beautiful woman from a Colombian upper-class family who is caught in the throes of delirium; Midas, Agustina's former lover and a prominent drug-trafficker and money-launderer; and Nicolas, Agustina's grandfather, who also went mad at the end of his life. Through the mixing of these distinct voices, Laura Restrepo creates a searing portrait of a society battered by war and corruption, as well as an intimate look at the daily lives of people struggling to stay sane in an unstable society. It is an ambitious and deeply affecting masterwork by one of Latin America's most important contemporary voices.

"Delirio is a Colombian story, an expression of everything that fascinates us about Colombia, including what's terrifyingly fascinatingRestrepo has a total mastery over what she writes, an astonishing but absolute mastery. Delirio is one of the finest novels written in recent memory." -- Jose Saramago "This barrio angel teaches us to see behind the appearance of things and how to embrace reality with all the senses." -- Isabel Allende "A writer who illuminates a world." Washington Post Book World "Laura Restrepo's Delirium has an aesthetic distinction worthy of her precursors Garcia Marquez and Saramago. Like them, her narrative sense of erotic derangement is elaborately nuanced. Ultimately she seems to me an authentic descendent of the greatest New World author and seer of eros, Walt Whitman." -- Harold Bloom "This beautiful and disturbing book haunted me during the days I read it and long after I put it down. Love, unknowability, loss, and even various forms of gain elide from one to another of its passionate, unnerving voices." -- Vikram Seth

Laura Restrepo is the bestselling author of several prize-winning novels published in over a dozen languages, including Leopard in the Sun, which won the Arzobispo San Clemente Prize, The Angel of Galilea, which won the Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Prize in Mexico and the Prix France Culture in France, and Delirium, which won the 2004 Alfaguara Prize, the Grinzane Cavour Prize in Italy, and was shortlisted for the Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger in France. She lives in Mexico City.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781846551185
ISBN 10	1846551188
Title	Delirium
Author	Laura Restrepo
Condition	Unavailable
Publisher	Vintage Publishing
Year published	2007-08-16
Number of pages	336
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable