La venganza del silencio by Alonso Cueto

Alonso Cueto (Lima, 1954) is the author of several novels, short stories and essays. He recently published a study on Uruguayan writer Juan Carlos Onetti, El Soñador en la Penumbra (Fondo Cultural Económica, 2009). Cueto has won several distinctions for his literary work, including the prestigious Herralde Award (Spain 2005) for his novel La Hora Azul (The Blue Hour), the 2007 Casa de Américas-Planeta second-place prize for his novel Susurro de la Mujer Ballena (Sigh of the Whale Woman) and the Anna Seghers Prize for his body of work (Germany, 2000).  He also received a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation grant in 2002. Filmmaker Francisco Lombardi adapted Cueto’s novel Grandes Miradas (Knowing Gazes) to the screen in “Mariposa Negra,” which won several international awards. Cueto’s work has been translated into 15 languages, including Chinese and Korean. Random House recently bought the rights for the English-language translation of La Hora Azul.  Cueto lives in Lima, Peru, where he teaches literature and writing workshops at the Universidad Católica. (From Alonso Cueto’s website here, the rest is in Spanish)

From Cueto I have read only La hora azul (The Blue Hour) and I liked it. His latest book, a crime fiction novel, La venganza del silencio (Revenge of Silence),  tells the story tale of a man who wants to solve a murder. Everything takes place in an aristocratic Lima family, whose life was spent in apparent normality until the day of the crime.. It has received excellent reviews. Unfortunately it does not seem to be available in Spain yet but I will try to get a copy from some Peruvian friends.

Read the first chapter here (in Spanish)

There is work ahead to do

Once the 2010 International Dagger Award has been announced I look forward to the 2011 International Dagger Award. You can check at Euro Crime here the list, so far, of translated crime novels published between June 2010 and May 2011 ie the period of eligibility.

I have only read one, Mankell’s The Troubled Man (El hombre inquieto) in Spanish – you can check my post here, but I have just started to read Villar’s Death on a Galician Shore (La playa de los ahogados) and I’ve Markaris’ Basic Shareholder (El accionista mayoritario) as my third European book on Dorte’s 2010 Global Reading Challenge. I do not plan to read them all, but there are very interesting titles just to keep me going. There is work ahead to do.