False War: A Novel [Paperback]

An ambitious, panoptic novel about exile as both condition and state of being by a major young Cuban writer

The characters inFalse Warare ambivalent castaways living lives of deep estrangement from their home country, stranded in an existential no-mans land. Some of them want to leave and cant, others do leave but never quite get anywhere.

In this multivoiced novel, employing a dazzling range of narrative styles from noir to autofiction, Carlos Manuel ?lvarez brings together the stories of many people from all walks of life through a series of interconnected daisy chains. From Havana to Mexico City to Miami, from New York to Paris to Berlin, whether toiling in a barber shop, roaring in Yankee Stadium, lost in the Louvre, intensely competing in a chess hall in Cuba, plotting a theft, or on a junket for ?migr? dissidents in Berlin, these characters learn that while they may seem to be on the move, in reality they are paralyzed, immersed in a fake war waged with little real passion.

The fractured narrative, filled with extraordinary portraits of ordinary people, reflects the disintegration that comes from being uprooted. At the same time it is full of tenderness, moments of joy and profound release.False Warconfirms Carlos Manuel ?lvarez as one of the indispensable voices of his generation in Latin American letters.

Carlos Manuel ?lvarez is the author ofThe TribeandThe Fallen.He has been included inGrantas Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists as well as Bogot?39s best Latin American writers under 40. He lives in New York City.

Natasha Wimmer is the translator of nine books by Roberto Bola?o, includingThe Savage Detectivesand2666. Her recent translations include Nona Fern?ndezsVoyagerand ?lvaro EnriguesYou Dreamed of Empires.

Cuban writer ?lvarez (lÃN