Songs for the Flames

"Like Bola¿o, V¿uez is a master stylist and a virtuoso of patient pacing and intricate structure" LEV GROSSMAN, Time Magazine


"Juan Gabriel V¿uez . . . has succeeded Garc¿M¿uez as the literary grandmaster of Colombia" ARIEL DORFMAN, New York Review of Books


A morally complex, searing set of stories by the award-winning author of The Sound of Things Falling and The Shape of the Ruins (shortlisted for the Booker International Prize 2019).

A renowned photographer probes a traumatic incident in the life of a fellow guest at a countryside ranch. A chance meeting at a regimental reunion obliges a Korean War veteran to confront a shameful secret. And in the title story, an internet search for a book published in 1887 leads to the discovery of the life of a remarkable woman: Aurelia de L¿, who arrives in Colombia as a child orphan of the Great War, but as a free-spirited a