Arid Sky

About the Author:Emiliano Monge (Mexico City, 1978) studied Political Science at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, where he also taught until his move to Barcelona, where he currently resides. Though he has worked as a book and magazine editor, at present, he fully dedicates his time to this writing. His first short story collection, Arrastrar esa sombra,was published in 2008, followed by the novel Morirse de memoria; both were finalists for the Antonin Artaud award. With a wide array of non-fiction essays, reportage, and book reviews, he has been an ongoing contributor to the Spanish newspaper El País, the Mexican newspaper Reforma, and prestigious magazines such as Letras Libres and Gatopardo. He was the two-time recipient of the Conaculta award Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, and is now a member of the “Orden del Finnegans”, a group of Spanish writers that gather annually on Bloomsday in Dublin in honour of Joyce’s Ulysses. In 2011, the Guadalajara International Book Fair chose him as one of the top 25 best-kept secrets in contemporary Latin American literature, and in 2013 was awarded the Corte Inglés prize “Otros ámbitos, otras voces”. Last but not least, he was selected for “México20”, a list of twenty important young Mexican authors (chosen by The British Council, the FIL, Hay Festival, Conaculta) who will be the guests of honour at the upcoming London Book Fair, with their work featured in an anthology to be published by Pushkin Press.About the Translator:Thomas Bunstead is a writer and translator based in East Sussex, England. He has translated some of the leading Spanish-language writers working today, including Agustín Fernández Mallo, Enrique Vila-Matas and Juan Villoro, and his own writing has appeared in publications such as The Paris Review, The White Review and The Times Literary Supplement. He is an editor at the literary translation journal In Other Words. Find him on Twitter: @thom_bunn

“The novel thrives on a persistent feeling of universality, a sense that Germán’s scrambled life is a stand-in for many others. Monge routinely refers to him as “ourman,” the better to cast him as symbol for countless other similar violent actors, villains who want to think of themselves as heroes. But the name also forces us to claim him as part of history that can’t be wiped away.”