Signs Preceding the End of the World

Yuri Herrera’s first novel to appear in English, Signs Preceding the End of the World, won the Best Translated Book Award and was chosen by The Guardian as one of ‘The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century’. His second novel The Transmigration of Bodies was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and his sci-fi inflected collection of stories Ten Planets was a finalist for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize. He teaches at Tulane University, New Orleans. Lisa Dillman teaches in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She has translated a number of Spanish and Latin American writers. Her recent translations include The Bitch and Abyss by Pilar Quintana.

‘Yuri Herrera is Mexico’s greatest novelist. His spare, poetic narratives and incomparable prose read like epics compacted into a single perfect punch – they ring your bell, your being, your soul. Signs Preceding the End of the World delivers a darkly mythological vision of the U.S. as experienced by the “not us” that is harrowing and fierce. The profoundly dignified, mind-boggling Makina, our guide and translator, is the heroine who redeems us all: she is the Truth.’