Bøger af Daniel Alarcon

The world's best contemporary writers-from Michael Chabon and Claire Messud to Jonathan Lethem and Amy Tan-engage in a wide-ranging, insightful, and oft- surprising roundtable discussion on the art of writing fictionDrawing back the curtain on the mysterious process of writing novels, The Secret Miracle brings together the foremost practitioners of the craft to discuss how they write. Paul Auster, Roddy Doyle, Allegra Goodman, Aleksandar Hemon, Mario Vargas Llosa, Susan Minot, Rick Moody, Haruki Murakami, George Pelecanos, Gary Shteyngart, Daniel Alarcón, and others take us step by step through the alchemy of writing fiction, answering everything from nuts-and-bolts queries-"Do you outline?"-to perennial questions posed by writers and readers alike: "What makes a character compelling?" From Stephen King's deadpan distinction between novels and short stories ("Novels are longer and have more s**t in them") to Colm Toibin's anti-romanticized take on his characters ("They are just words") to José Manuel Prieto's mature perspective on the anxieties of influence ("Influences are felt or weigh you down more when young"), every page contains insights found nowhere else.With honesty, humor, and elegance, The Secret Miracle gives both aspiring writers and lovers of literature a master class in the art of writing.

"[Alarcón's] tales, set largely in the hardscrabble world of Lima, build with all the power of a Flannery O'Connor story: a gentle enough start, an innocent setting, and before long the reader is adrift in a drama that defies the imagination--with characters that live long after the book is closed." -- Washington Post Book World In this exquisite story collection, Daniel Alarcón moves from Third World urban centers to the fault lines that divide nations and people to illuminate wars, both national and internal, waged in jungles, across the borders, in the streets of Lima, and in the intimacy of New York apartments. He tells of lives at the margins: an unrepentant terrorist remembers where it all began, a would-be emigrant contemplates the ramifications of leaving and never coming back, a reporter turns in his pad and pencil for the inglorious costume of a street clown. War by Candlelight is a devastating portrait of a world in flux from an extraordinary new voice in literary fiction, one you will not soon forget.

American Odysseys is an anthology of twenty-two novelists, poets, and short-story writers drawn from the shortlist for the 2011 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature. Including Ethiopian-born Dinaw Mengestu, the recipient of the Prize; Yugoslavian-born Téa Obreht, the youngest author to receive the Orange Prize in Fiction; and Chinese-born Yiyun Li, a MacArthur Genius grantee, what these authors all have in common¿and share with US Poet Laureate Charles Simic, who has contributed a foreword¿is that they are immigrants to the United States, now excelling in their fields and dictating the terms by which future American writing will be judged by the world. Running the gamut from desperate realism to whimsical fantasy¿from Miho Nonakäs poetry, inspired by fourteenth-century Noh theater, to Ismet Prcic¿s wrenching stories set in the aftermath of the Bosnian war¿American Odysseys is proof, if any be needed, that the heterogeneity of American society is its greatest asset.

LONGLISTED for the 2017 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTIONAn urgent, essential collection of stories about immigration, broken dreams, Los Angeles gang members, Latin American families, and other tales of high stakes journeys, from the award-winning author of War by Candlelight and At Night We Walk in Circles. Migration. Betrayal. Family secrets. Doomed love. Uncertain futures. In Daniel Alarcón's hands, these are transformed into deeply human stories with high stakes. In "The Thousands," people are on the move and forging new paths; hope and heartbreak abound. A man deals with the fallout of his blind relatives' mysterious deaths and his father's mental breakdown and incarceration in "The Bridge." A gang member discovers a way to forgiveness and redemption through the haze of violence and trauma in "The Ballad of Rocky Rontal." And in the tour de force novella, "The Auroras", a man severs himself from his old life and seeks to make a new one in a new city, only to find himself seduced and controlled by a powerful woman. Richly drawn, full of unforgettable characters, The King is Always Above the People reveals experiences both unsettling and unknown, and yet eerily familiar in this new world.

En el mundo, algo extraño está sucediendo: hay movimientos masivos de gente, lenguas y culturas que crecen dislocadas entre guerras y economías en crisis. En pocas palabras, nuestro mundo está cambiando. En este asombroso libro de cuentos, Daniel Alarcón transporta al lector de los centros urbanos tercermundistas a las líneas fragmentadas que muchas veces dividen naciones y personas. Un terrorista sin remordimientos recuerda sus comienzos, un posible inmigrante contempla las consecuencias de irse y no volver jamás, un reportero cambia su lápiz y papel por el trágico disfraz de un payaso callejero. Son guerras tanto nacionales como internas, que se llevan a cabo en la selva, en las calles de Lima o en la intimidad de un apartamento neoyorquino. Son vidas que se viven al margen del mundo globalizado y sin globalizar, son las historias de quienes constantemente viajan entre mundos diferentes sin jamás sentirse del todo en casa. Guerra en la Penumbra ilumina las grietas con las que todos tropezamos en el mundo moderno. Daniel Alarcón es un talento excepcional, una voz difícil de olvidar una vez el libro llega a su extraordinario y devastador desenlace.

LONGLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZEThe breakout book from Daniel Alarcon, one of the New Yorker's 20 best writers under 40: a breathtaking, suspenseful search for the truth of one man's spectacular downfall.Nelson's life is not turning out the way he hoped. His girlfriend is sleeping with another man, his brother has left their South American country and moved to the United States, leaving Nelson to care for their widowed mother, and his acting career can't seem to get off the ground. That is, until he lands a starring role in a touring revival of The Idiot President, with legendary guerrilla theatre troupe Diciembre. And that's when the real trouble begins.The tour takes Nelson across a landscape scarred by years of civil war. Forging bonds with his fellow actors, he becomes hopelessly entangled in their lives, until a long-buried betrayal erupts into chaos.Nelson's fate is slowly revealed through the investigation of the narrator, a young man obsessed with Nelson's story-and perhaps closer to it than he lets on. In sharp, vivid, and beautiful prose, Alarcon delivers a compulsively readable narrative and a provocative meditation on fate, identity, and the large consequences that can result from even our smallest choices.

Longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction An unforgettable collection of stories from Daniel Alarcon, one of the New Yorker's 20 best writers under 40, and one of the best storytellers of our time.

'Lost City Radio' is a poignant and deeply moving novel from a promising new author, which looks intensely at war's damaging effect on society and the individual.