Translated by Jay Anthony Miskowiec. Introduction by Gregory Rabassa
Latin American Literary Review Press (LALRP)
ISBN: 0-935480-62-5Price: $17.00Pages: 192Petronio Rincón is the son of an assassinated politician and the follower of a revolutionary priest. As a young man, he organizes the masses to incite the residents of a poor neighborhood. A decade later, the untamed and ritualistic jungle becomes Petronio's habitat. Overthrown by his avaricious troops and exiled by the government, Petronio then lands in Paris, where he is forcibly interned in a hospital and suffers from insomnia and nightmares. One evening, he chances upon a stone staircase that spirals him into the bowels of the city, beginning a Dantesque experience plagued with nameless tortures and horrors.
"In this novel, the two worlds, Paris and the tropics, so seemingly distant, are equated, and the catalyst for that equation is Crazy Rincón; madness all around."--Gregory Rabassa
"An outstanding translation ....Boulevard of Heroes offers an insightful voyage into the soul of Latin America's radical, old-time activists....the novel resonates with echoes of Julio Cortázar's Hopscotch, Miguel Angel Asturias's El Señor Presidente, and Demetrio Aguilera-Malta's Babelandia: forgotten military heroes have insatiable love affairs in a universe without logic....[t]his Colombian writer is without question a powerful storyteller...."--World Literature Today
"The most interesting points here are not about politics but about life in exile."--Publishers Weekly
