 Something
is happening around the globe: mass movements of peoples, dislocations
of language and culture in the wake of war and economic crises —simply
put, our world is changing.
In this exquisite collection, Daniel Alarcón
takes the reader from Third World urban centers to the fault lines
that divide nations and people. An unrepentant terrorist remembers
where it all began, a would-be emigrant contemplates the ramifications
of leaving and never coming back, a reporter turns in his pad and
pencil for the inglorious costume of a street clown. Wars, both
national and internal, are waged in jungles, across borders, in
the streets of Lima, in the intimacy of New York apartments. These
are lives at the margins of the globalized and not-yet-globalized
worlds, the stories of those who shuttle between them and never
quite feel at home in the cities where they were born.
War by Candlelight is a devastating portrait
of a world in flux, and Daniel Alarcón is an extraordinary
new voice in literary fiction, one you will not soon forget.
>
Read reviews of War by Candlelight
"Daniel Alarcón's stories are one of the
reasons we go to storytellers — they present worlds we have
only imagined or heard about in less truthful and poetic ways. And
Mr. Alarcón, like the best storytellers, reveals to us that
the world we have secreted in our hearts spins in a bigger universe
with other hearts just as good and just as bad as our own. Long
before you come to the poignant words, "I come see you, but
instead meet your absence," you will know what I mean."
—Edward P.
Jones, author of the Pulitzer Prize winner, The Known World
Reader beware: each of the slim tales in War by Candlelight
starts off innocently enough, but invariably explodes with the fatal
power of a grenade or the sudden, magnificent blossoming of a flower.
Daniel Alarcón is a storyteller whose wisdom outpaces his
youth, and whose talent is already ablaze.
—ZZ Packer, author of Drinking
Coffee Elsewhere
"American literature, whether in English or Spanish, comprises
one rowdy, glorious family (as Borges always knew.) Daniel Alarcón
writes in English, but he reminds me of the young Vargas Llosa.
'Beautiful, disgraced Lima,' Peru has a new enamorado for this young
century, edgy, vibrant, crackling smart, emotionally devastating
and soaring."
—Francisco Goldman, author of The
Divine Husband
"It was bound to happen: the great new Latin American voice
writes in English. Daniel Alarcón's surprising and adrenaline-filled
short stories not only put him immediately on the map, they turn
the damn map upside down."
—Alberto Fuguet, author of The
Movies of My Life
"War by Candlelight is frighteningly unpretentious
and direct, as it mines a territory all its own. These stories bare
luminous and mundane messages of new worlds with equal aplomb. An
inspiring debut."
—Ernesto Quiñonez, author
of Chango's Fire and Bodega Dreams
"In War by Candlelight, each story blends with the
next so that finally they all seem like plays within one greater
play about the natural limits, both personal and historical, of
unfair warfare. Mr. Alarcón wrote this collection of stories
in his early 20s, and yet he has written stories about isolation
and stultifying grief as if his soul has the normal scarred layout
of a 48 year old divorced father of two dead sons. These stories
are knowledgeable and mock sentimentality when they show us how
so many occasions in life are merely small rehearsals for death."
—Joe Loya, author of The Man
Who Outgrew His Prison Cell
"War by Candlelight is beautiful and terrifying: a
tour through lands, distant and near, where the difference between
violence and intimacy blurs. Daniel Alarcón's stories are
gritty and compassionate, subtle and unflinching. They carry us
straight to the frontlines of the struggle for physical and psychic
survival, where absurdity and tragedy find equal footing."
—Adam Mansbach, author of Angry
Black White Boy
"This book is powerful, poetic, and bold. I loved it."
—Chris Offutt, author of Out
of the Woods
"In Daniel Alarcón's exquisite world, revolutionaries
paint brown dogs black because the revolution needs black dogs;
a reporter dressed as a clown rides a bus through the streets of
Lima; amidst buried towns, children chase after aid packages full
of neckties. I was so caught up by these lucid stories that I didn't
have a chance to anticipate their tremendous elegance. One minute
you're riding your bike down the sidewalk in Washington Heights,
the next minute, your life has changed forever. Daniel Alarcón
is one hell of a writer. "
—Lewis Robinson, author of Officer
Friendly and Other Stories
Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award Citation
April 2, 2006
War by Candlelight is as urgent and inflamed as the urban front,
but its distinction is that it never yields to the sensational or
surrenders its attentiveness to intimate emotion. Daniel Alarcón
chronicles vividly both the pain of exile and the entrapments of
poverty and the absence of hope. His book is a thrillingly fiery
debut, fierce but wrought with impressive care.
Washington
Post Book World
August 15, 2005
Alarcón’s fierce, stylish and intricate stories announce
a prodigious talent. His tales build with all the power of a Flannery
O'Connor story: a gentle enough start, an innocent setting, and
before long the reader is adrift in a drama that defies the imagination
-- with characters that live long after the book is closed.
Alameda Magazine
[256 K pdf]
July/August 2005
Alarcón pulls off that rare trick—making quiet moments
ignite with beauty.
Birmingham News
July 10, 2005
The stories are told with unflinching honesty. Alarcón is
quickly becoming a writer to watch.
Pop Matters
June 24, 2005
The writing is fluid, the vision unwavering. He soars easily from
the slightest detail to an abstract notion and just as smoothly
back into the heart of the scene. Most inspiring is the promise
that he will continue to shower us with frenzied, wonderful stories
in the years to come.
Bookslut
June 2005
Daniel Alarcón may just be one of the best storytellers writing
fiction today. His keen eye and amazing descriptions give the stories
the kind of detail often lacking in debut fiction. An extraordinary
collection.
The Ruminator
June/July 2005
At an age when most short-story writers are in thrall to either
Carver-style earnestness or McSweenian irony, Daniel Alarcón
is already on another plane. Throughout the book, Alarcón
tosses off one casual, beautiful, devastating line after another,
announcing the arrival of a Lahiri-like talent to keep an eye on.
San Antonio Express-News
May 29, 2005
Daniel Alarcón's stories transcend any label. He moves beyond
any designation. The stories are by turns gritty and elegant, startling
and stunning. An extraordinarily auspicious beginning.
Oakland Tribune
May 26, 2005
The color and pathos of Alarcón's writing reminds readers
of Graham Greene, while his spare language sounds like Hemingway
— high praise but deserved. Alarcon talks about war in the
street and in the heart, powerful subjects served with finesse.
Irish Examiner
May 23, 2005
This confident debut collection of short fiction has much to recommend
it: Alarcón is a compassionate new voice whose maturity belies
his relative youth.
Charlotte
Observer
May 22, 2005
There is a naked honesty in his debut collection. Alarcón
writes with strength and passion.
Seattle Times
May 20, 2005
The sights and sounds and tensions of the Peruvian capital come
brilliantly alive. Several tales here are masterpieces. A notable
debut.
Seattle Weekly
May 18, 2005
A perceptive collection. His prose is sinewy, his rhythms terse,
his eye sharp.
Dallas Morning
News
May 14, 2005
The sentences are fearless and electric, amplifying the dark joys
of the mean streets. Alarcón is a master delineator of place.
When he puts us there, when his city becomes our city, the stunner
is that everything is instantly recognizable. That's how we know
he has stolen our minds.
Baton Rouge Advocate
May 8, 2005
The stories in War by Candlelight are wrenching and powerful. Alarcón's
characters never lose their humanity.
San Francisco Magazine
[80 K pdf]
May 2005
Gripping. His artistry is exhilarating and sometimes his spare prose
can make you cry.
The Herald
April 25, 2005
Alarcón writes with tremendous humanity and vivid fluidity.
His great achievement is to explore the personal consequences of
a shrinking world with the same sensitivity and intensity as he
considers the established horrors of history.
The Guardian
April 24, 2005
Alarcón is an urban wordsmith. War by Candlelight is a luminous
beginning, crackling with attitude.
Los Angeles Times
April 20, 2005
However difficult it may be for a person to straddle two cultures,
it's an advantage for a writer -- an advantage Alarcon exploits
with a technical skill and a maturity of feeling that belie his
age.
San Francisco Chronicle
April 17, 2005
There is much to admire in War by Candlelight. Alarcón writes
of his native country with a burning youthful ambition that illuminates
and inspires.
New York Post
[228 K pdf]
April 13, 2005
A stunning fiction debut.
New York Newsday
April 10, 2005
Alarcón is an enticing escort into a bewildering world where
poverty is strong, democracy weak and politics inescapable. The
stories' appeal lies in a deft use of metaphor and in underscoring
the human aspects of politics, beyond ideology.
The Economist
April 7, 2005
War by Candlelight is weighty and earnest. There's no doubting Mr.
Alarcón's seriousness and ambition. He is one to watch.
Time Out New York
[136 K pdf]
April 4, 2005
An explosive story collection.
Boston Phoenix
April 3, 2005
Each of these nine stories provides a dazzling glimpse of Alarcón’s
talent.
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
April 3, 2005
Alarcón's skill with language and his eye for the beautiful
tragedy of the human condition are on brilliant display in War by
Candlelight.
Chicago Tribune
March 27, 2005
The engaging stories in Daniel Alarcón's debut collection,
War by Candlelight, draw on Peru's violent history, the plight of
Lima's poor and the hopes of immigrants in New York. Finely crafted
fiction, rich in feeling and images.
Publishers Weekly
[180 K pdf]
March 2005
Civil strife and natural disasters mark these nine unflinching stories.
Alarcón's voice is fierce and assured, and his debut collection
engages.
Booklist
[56 K pdf]
March 2005
Alarcón evokes the sorrows and beauty of Peru with precision
and steadiness. Gifted and perceptive, he joins a new wave of incisive
literary border-crossers.
Library Journal
February 1, 2005
The Peruvian-born Alarcón writes in a strong, vibrant style,
with recognizable characters and realistic situations. The names
and places are Hispanic in name only; the stories transcend a sense
of place.
Kirkus Reviews
January 1, 2005
Alarcón jumps right in with a fearlessness that becomes his
most striking quality. The extremes of death and war and poverty
are what impel Alarcón to his best work. A rare combination
of technical accomplishment and generous heart. (starred review) |
