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Book of the Month Outside Links: Book Author Publisher
Additional Conversation Outside Links: Author
February 2014 Book of the Month
At Night We Walk in Circles
At Night We Walk in Circles
Riverhead Books
By Daniel Alarcón
Published by Riverhead Books
ISBN-13: 978-1594631719
Nelson’s life is not turning out the way he hoped. His girlfriend is sleeping with another man, his brother has left their South American country, leaving Nelson to care for their widowed mother, and his acting career can’t seem to get off the ground. That is, until he lands a starring role in a touring revival of The Idiot President, a legendary play by Nelson’s hero, Henry Nunez, leader of the storied guerrilla theater troupe Diciembre. And that’s when the real trouble begins. The tour takes Nelson out of the shelter of the city and across a landscape he’s never seen, which still bears the scars of the civil war. With each performance, Nelson grows closer to his fellow actors, becoming hopelessly entangled in their complicated lives, until, during one memorable performance, a long-buried betrayal surfaces to force the troupe into chaos. Nelson’s fate is slowly revealed through the investigation of the narrator, a young man obsessed with Nelson’s story—and perhaps closer to it than he lets on. In sharp, vivid, and beautiful prose, Alarcón delivers a compulsively readable narrative and a provocative meditation on fate, identity, and the large consequences that can result from even our smallest choices.
Daniel Alarcón
Daniel Alarcón
Daniel Alarcón is author of the story collection War by Candlelight, a finalist for the 2005 PEN-Hemingway Award, and Lost City Radio, named a Best Novel of the Year by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Washington Post. His fiction, journalism and translations have appeared in A Public Space, El País, McSweeney’s, n+1, and Harper’s, and in 2010 The New Yorker named him one of the best 20 Writers Under 40. Alarcón is co-founder of Radio Ambulante, a Spanish language storytelling podcast, and currently serves as a Fellow in the Investigative Reporting Program at the UC Berkeley School of Journalism. He lives in San Francisco, California.
February 2014 Additional Conversation
Rudy Ruiz
Rudy Ruiz
Milagros Press
Rudy Ruiz was born in Brownsville, Texas, the son and grandson of Mexican immigrants. He grew up in a bilingual, bicultural setting along both sides of the border. At 17 he enrolled at Harvard, where he studied both government and creative writing, graduating with honors and going on to earn a Masters in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Since 1995 he has been the CEO of Interlex Communications, an advocacy marketing agency. His first book, ¡Adelante!, was acclaimed as a guide for immigrants to success in America. His essay in the anthology Going Hungry was recognized in Newsweek Magazine for shattering stereotypes on eating disorders. His most recent book is his fiction debut, a collection of short stories titled Seven for the Revolution. He has been hailed as “a cultural visionary” by the National Hispanic Institute.
Seven for the Revolution
Seven for the Revolution
By Rudy Ruiz
Published by Milagros Press
ISBN-13: 978-1304064899
An idealistic Mexican colonel obsessed with building a better Mexico loses his daughters to the allure of America. A young Latina struggles to communicate with her immigrant grandfather when her mother prohibits her from speaking Spanish. A boy grapples with the slippery nature of laws, rules and ambition along the US-Mexico border in his quest for the American Dream. An elderly woman’s land, life and loyalties are divided by a controversial border fence. A South American immigrant encounters racism and love in an LA elevator as turmoil swirls around a radical change in immigration policy. In post-apocalyptic New York, a Latina fights to defend the last vestiges of a nation’s pride as disgruntled creditors threaten to confiscate the Statue of Liberty. And a resourceful American survivor seeks freedom and peace on foreign soil.