He was named Jorge, like me, and for this his life hurts me twice. So writes Jorge Volpi in this highly original novel that presents a biographical perspective on the tragic life of the poet and chemist Jorge Cuesta. Cuesta was one of the founders of Los Contemporáneos, an influential twentieth-century literary movement. The poetic voice of Cuesta's verses can be heard throughout, offering insights into the creative and destructive forces and impulses in his work that eventually led to a mental ward—and a shocking suicide at thirty-eight. The fictional Jorge, as narrator, embarks on an obsessive quest to understand the life of the long-dead poet, with the distance between subject and researcher blurring as he finds himself struggling to understand his own life. It is a brave search for anyone willing to gaze into the mirror of mortality in spite of the dark silence.
Jorge Volpi, the author ofSeason of Ash, among other books, is one of the founders of the influential literary movement, The Crack.In Spite of the Dark Silencewas his first novel, published when he was just twenty-four.Olivia Macielteaches in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Loyola University-Chicago. She is also visiting professor in the Honors College at the University of Illinois-Chicago.
First Oeuvre: The Sign of a Hand
Second Oeuvre: Vast Deposit of Brief Lives
Third Oeuvre: The Taste of Darkness
Author's Note
Afterword
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
“A spinning novel exploring suicide and the shocking trend of creative people to it and the world of literature, In Spite of the Dark Silenceis a fascinating and very highly recommended read, not to be missed.”
“Jorge Volpi’s work is a fundamental reference to the new Latin American narrative. At a time when doubt confronts the viability and possibill“°
![In Spite of the Dark Silence [Hardcover]](/itemImage/2/0/5/5/2_5199655.jpg "In Spite of the Dark Silence [Hardcover]")