Bryce Echenique, Alfredo

New York. 2001. December 2001. Pantheon Books. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0375421432. Translated from the Spanish by Alfred MacAdam. 262 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Frank Gargullo . keywords: Literature Peru Latin America Translated. FROM THE PUBLISHER - From the internationally acclaimed Peruvian writer-winner of the Cervantes Prize, the most prestigious literary award in the Spanish-speaking world-a tragicomic story of improbable, inevitable love. At the center: a couple in love, in exile together and apart. He is Juan Manuel Carpio, a second-generation Peruvian of Native American origins, a middle-class singer-composer. She is Fernanda Maria de la Trinidad del Monte Montes, a polyglot and cultured Salvadoran. Through the mostly epistolary narrative set in 1960s Paris, revolutionary El Salvador, Chile, 1980s California, and London, we follow the thirty-year arc of their relationship. At once cheerful, hopeful, and informed by a serene lack of sentimentality, the narrative-rich with the delights of paradox and hyperbole - sees the couple through disastrous and traumatic marriages to other people; the ups and downs of their respective careers; the inexorable effects of politics on their personal lives; their shifting passions and gradual realization that the truest bond between lovers is a tender, abiding, and respectful friendship. inventory #31293 ISBN: 0375421432.