Tono the Infallible

by Evelio Rosero, Anne McLean (Translator), Victor Meadowcroft (Translator)

Overview

An unforgettable yet humane novel that takes us into the heart of Colombia’s brutal society, by one of the country’s most renowned writers

I was alone when someone pounded on my door. Who could it be?

So begins Toño the Infallible, Evelio Rosero’s gripping novel about an intense relationship between a writer and a sociopath. Visited by his friend (a kind of Colombian Rasputin) seemingly at the verge of death, the writer, Eri, looks back on the arc of both of their lives. Unique in both its tone and its structure, the novel takes us from their student days (school fights, playground revelations, and an unforgettable trip to the seaside) into their adult years, involving rumors of a hippie cult and a bizarre raucous theater exhibit of history’s most violent crimes. Toño uses his charm and wealth—as well as reputed magical powers—to manipulate others, but it isn’t until the end of the book that the devastating truth is revealed—and how true is it? Reminiscent of the fiction of Roberto Bolaño and the films of Alfonso Cuarón, this brilliant novel takes us into the heart of his country’s darkness, creating an unforgettable portrait of a society where humanity still endures, despite its brutality.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780811228817
Publisher:	New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	09/06/2022
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	634,221
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Evelio Rosero was born in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1958. He was awarded Colombia’s National Literature Prize by the Ministry of Culture in 2006 for his body of work, which includes several novels, short story collections, and books for young readers and children. The Armies, Rosero’s first novel to be translated into English, won the Tusquets International Prize and the 2009 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.

Anne McLean lives in Toronto and has translated the works of authors including Javier Cercas, Julio Cortázar, and Juan Gabriel Vásquez, and Enrique Vila-Matas.

Victor Meadowcroft is based in Brighton, England, and translates from the Spanish and Portuguese.

Editorial Reviews

07/25/2022

The engrossing latest from Colombian writer Rosero (Stranger to the Moon) plumbs the depths of an artist’s depravity. When 50-year-old writer Eri answers his door one evening, he is greeted by Toño, a former friend and tormentor whom he hasn’t seen for 20 years. Toño is in poor health, and confesses to his wife’s murder before passing out. As Eri struggles with Toño’s reappearance, he recalls their teenage interactions, which include the affluent Toño’s possible involvement in multiple sexual assaults, as well as Eri’s eventual decision to break off their friendship. As years pass, Eri hears rumors of Toño starting a commune and staging horrific art installations—graphic performances included reenactments of the Holocaust and the genocidal conquest of the Americas, though most upsetting to the authorities was a performance involving a naked Jesus and lovesick Mary Magdalene. Back in the present, Eri watches over the ailing Toño and wonders how much of the man’s life is merely myth. Rosero swiftly navigates the recursive timeline, and he offsets dark and decadent flashbacks with Eri’s struggle to parse truth from embellishment, right up to Toño’s present-day claim about his wife’s murder. Though some moments are difficult to stomach, the result is a sharp commentary on the human capacity for brutality. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Through his dreamlike prose, the author creates a bona fide foil in Eri, who illuminates Toño’s psychopathy. Rosero does, however, leave it to the reader to discern if Toño did, in fact, commit the heinous crimes, or if the tale of Toño is legend and just the vessel Rosero uses to express his feelings about Colombia’s government."

World Literature Today - Wayne Catan

"Rosero affirms unashamedly that literature can and should change social reality."

BOMB - Antonio Ungar

"The atrocity exhibition that Rosero has set up for his readers in Toño the Infallible, a book that teems with casual assassination and generational incest, deftly suggests that the slipperiest sin might be humanity’s ability to excuse itself from the worst of its tribe."

Texas Observer - Roberto Ontiveros

"Outrageous, vile, and wild...the book is simply compelling. Rosero’s prose—as translated by Victor Meadowcroft and Anne McLean—is mesmerizing."

Countercraft - Lincoln Michel

"The Armies is a disturbing allegory of life during wartime, in which little appears to happen while at the same time entire lives and worlds collapse."

The Times (London)

"Evelio Rosero is one of the most important and innovative Colombian writers working today. His voice is essential, in terms of using fiction to make sense and shed light on Colombia's violent past and present. Toño the Infallible is a valuable contribution to Rosero's oeuvre: the novel takes us on one darkly picaresque adventure after another, with the disturbingly twisted titular character. Like Patrick Bateman and Amy Dunne, Toño easily joins the ranks of memorable literary villains. With this novel Rosero has proven himself as an author decidedly unafraid to ask difficult questions about the nature and origin of evil and cruelty. This is a brave, uncompromising, and unforgettable work."

Julianne Pachico

"Inexplicable violence follows Toño, or perhaps he chases violence around, every bit of gore intensified by Rosero’s vivid prose."

Southwest Review - Federico Perelmuter