After the Bombs

by Arturo Arias, Asa Zatz (Translator)

Overview

After the Bombs is a coming of age story that holds a mirror up to the modern history of Guatemala—a funhouse mirror of richly inventive and farcical black comedy which provides a better description of life in that country than any history book ever could. It opens with the bombing of Guatemala City in 1954 when the hero, Max, is a small child. In a swiftly moving narrative, Max journeys toward adulthood, searching for his identity, for his father, and along the way, for the real Guatemala and the possibility of a society founded on human decency, after the bombs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780915306893
Publisher:	Northwestern University Press
Publication date:	07/01/1995
Pages:	221
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Arturo Arias is professor of Latin American studies at the University of California, Merced. He has published four books in English: After the Bombs, Rattlesnake, The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy, and Taking their Word: Literature and the Signs of Central America. He is also widely known for his literary criticism.

Asa Zatz was born in Mexico and has translated nearly one hundred books. He lives in New York.

Editorial Reviews

"After the Bombs is a sort of bildungsroman run riot. Arias mixes stream-of-consciousness, lyrical outbursts, Marx Brothers antics, a nuanced, poetic sense of rhythm in his sentence construction, funky gossip, and myth, all with a fine sense of theatricality." —Voice Literary Supplement


"A sumptuous buffet of characters and situations." —Booklist


"Mr. Arias . . . has produced a powerfully disturbing work." —New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher

After the Bombs is a sort of bildungsroman run riot. Arias mixes stream of consciousness, lyrical outbursts, Marx Brothers antics, a nuanced, poetic sense of rhythm in his sentence construction, funky gossip, and myth; all with a fine sense of theatricality.

Voice Literary Supplement

This powerful novel by the coauthor of the script for the film El Norte dissects the spirit of a country living through a nightmare. Based on the 1954 bombardment of Guatemala City by U.S. forces, it depicts Máximo, who comes of age in a world of corpse-littered streets, where the police are brigands, order is kept by random executions and the writing of books is a crime. At 13, Maximo falls in love with quirky Karen, daughter of the U.S. ambassador—until a case of mistaken identity leads to a violent, perverse attack on both of them. Against this sordid backdrop, he decides to become a writer—to "build a cathedral of words"—and tell the story of his people's agony, and attempt to unravel the mystery of his father's long-ago disappearance. He meets the beautiful Amarena, a well-connected prostitute who becomes his lover, confidante and ally. At the lavish funeral of the local CIA chief, Máximo intrudes into the proceedings to read a story he's written exposing the horrors of Guatemala and lampooning U.S. officials. While he tries to escape the ensuing dragnet, Amarena comes to his rescue in an ending that adds a fillip of hope to a brutal, compelling morality tale.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Set against the 1954 coup in Guatemala (as the titular "bombs'' indicate), this novel traces a young revolutionary's struggle for political truth that parallels the quest for his own identity as manifested by his frustrating search for his missing father. Overt symbolism, couched in caricature and violence, enlivens an otherwise anemic satiric vision. The tone derives its inspiration from García Márquez's The Autumn of the Patriarch and especially from compatriot Asturias's El Senor Presidente (1963), neither of whose stylistic excellence or innovations it shares. A tepid recommendation for all but the strongest literature collections.
—Lawrence Olszewski, OCLC, Dublin, Ohio

Library Journal