False War
Carlos Manuel Álvarez author Natasha Wimmer translator
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Fitzcarraldo Editions
Publishing:28th Aug '25
£14.99
This title is due to be published on 28th August, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
The characters in False War are castaways on dry land, stranded on no man’s land. Some of them want to leave Cuba and can’t, others left and never quite finished getting anywhere. They live in a sort of limbo, a perpetual impasse between reality and desire, past and future, country of origin and country of destination – awaiting a confirmation or, purely and simply, some respite. Something to keep reminding them that life is possible.
What is the difference between an immigrant, someone living in exile, and a refugee? Doomed to chaos, anguish or tedium, the perennially displaced are beleaguered by a world that – in that simulation of advancement towards the illusion of a consumer society – reminds them that there is no place for them at every turn. In this choral novel, the characters appear to move between Cuba, the United States, Mexico, France or Germany with confidence, while in reality they all feel paralyzed, immersed in a fake war waged without any real passion or any authentic ideas.
Structured with an atomized narration that brilliantly reflects the disintegration that comes with uprooting, full of tenderness, disenchantment and melancholy, False War is an extraordinary novel that confirms Carlos Manuel Álvarez as one of the indispensable voices of his generation.
‘A new Latin American literature is here: With precocious mastery of a paragon of narrative resources and an overwhelming sensibility, Carlos Manuel Álvarez portrays the only identity that truly matters – not the national one, but the human one.’
— Emiliano Monge, author of What Goes Unsaid
Natasha Wimmer is a translator of contemporary fiction and literary nonfiction from Spanish to English. She spent four formative years in Spain as a child and concentrated in Romance Languages and Literature as an undergraduate at Harvard University. She is a regular visiting lecturer at Princeton University and Columbia University, and she has written reviews and criticism for The Believer, the New York Times and The Nation, among other publications. She is the recipient of an NEA Translation Grant, a PEN Translation Award and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and two children.
ISBN: 9781804271513
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
248 pages