By Night The Mountain Burns by Juan Tomas Avila Laurel FICTION
Posted 10:51, 13 November 2014
By Night The Mountain Burns by Juan Tomas Avila Laurel, translated by Jethro Soutar, pb. £10 published by & Other Stories
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A marvel of a book. More like a song composed of verses, choruses and refrains. The novel is based on Avila Laurel's memories of growing up on Annobon Island off the West Africcan Coast, part of Equatorial Guinea and Africa's only Spanish-speaking country. Compared by critics to Whitman, Achebe and Marquez. No matter the comparisons, this is refreshingly different to anything else I've read this year. - R
Avila Laurel is a nurse by profession and for many years was one of the best known Equatorial Guinean writers not to have opted to live in exile. But in 2011 after a hunger strike against his country's dictatorial regime he moved to Barcelona. He writes across all media.
& Other Stories is a bold venture relying on subscribers to publish the type of stories most traditional publishers consider too risky to take on. If you are fluent in a language other than English you might want to get involved in their foreign-lnaguage reading groups to help them choose which books to publish. Find them at www.andotherstories.org/reading-groups/