Sergio Waisman

“[A] worthy successor to the likes of Borges and Cortázar . . . . Waisman’s introduction and Piglia’s afterward provide helpful thematic and historical background, and overcoming the plot’s difficulties should satisfy anyone interested in seeing how intricate literary puzzles reflect the political significance of the narrative imagination. Macedonio’s recreation of Elena represents the need to transform a repressive ‘objective’ reality into a hopeful virtual reality, and Piglia’s hall-of-mirrors novel reiterates why such a transformation must remain eternally deferred--yet always possible.” — Thomas Hove, Review of Contemporary Fiction

“[P]leasurable and rewarding.” — Publishers Weekly

“Piglia may be the best Latin American writer to have appeared since the heyday of Gabriel García Márquez. The Absent City, in any case, is a masterpiece.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Piglia offers a stripped-down, dystopian portrait of futuristic Buenos Aires, a surveillance state in which a journalist named Junior tries to decode a machine that contains a missing woman’s memories of government atrocities.” — Jonathan Bing, Bookforum

“Piglia takes the reader on a dense narrative path that is often confusing but never boring as story after story weaves in and out of this political thriller.” — Frank Caso, Booklist

“Piglia, known for breaking down the barriers between criticism and fiction, has fictionally transposed the life and work of Macedonio into a tortuous and fantastic novel which self-consciously asks what kind of reality is produced by a literary text. But then, in The Absent City, literary reality is the only safe vehicle for repressed and silenced voices.” — Mary Sarko, Rain Taxi

“Ricardo Piglia combines his trademark avant garde aesthetics with astute cultural and political insights into Argentina’s history and contemporary condition in this conceptually daring and entertaining novel.” — Translation Review

“[A] worthy successor to the likes of Borges and Cortázar . . . . Waisman’s introduction and Piglia’s afterward provide helpful thematic and historical background, and overcoming the plot’s difficulties should satisfy anyone interested in seeing how intricate literary puzzles reflect the political significance of the narrative imagination. Macedonio’s recreation of Elena represents the need to transform a repressive ‘objective’ reality into a hopeful virtual reality, and Piglia’s hall-of-mirrors novel reiterates why such a transformation must remain eternally deferred--yet always possible.” —Thomas Hove, Review of Contemporary Fiction

“[P]leasurable and rewarding.” —Publishers Weekly

“Piglia may be the best Latin American writer to have appeared since the heyday of Gabriel García Márquez. The Absent City, in any case, is a masterpiece.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Piglia offers a stripped-down, dystopian portrait of futuristic Buenos Aires, a surveillance state in which a journalist named Junior tries to decode a machine that contains a missing woman’s memories of government atrocities.” —Jonathan Bing, Bookforum

“Piglia takes the reader on a dense narrative path that is often confusing but never boring as story after story weaves in and out of this political thriller.” —Frank Caso, Booklist

“Piglia, known for breaking down the barriers between criticism and fiction, has fictionally transposed the life and work of Macedonio into a tortuous and fantastic novel which self-consciously asks what kind of reality is produced by a literary text. But then, in The Absent City, literary reality is the only safe vehicle for repressed and silenced voices.” —Mary Sarko, Rain Taxi

“Ricardo Piglia combines his trademark avant garde aesthetics with astute cultural and political insights into Argentina’s history and contemporary condition in this conceptually daring and entertaining novel.” —Translation Review

“A truly striking and innovative novel written by one of Latin America’s most highly regarded novelists. Piglia brings into play a swirl of tales mixing dark truths with hallucinatory adventures.” — Gwen Kirkpatrick, author of, The Dissonant Legacy of Modernismo

“Piglia is Argentina’s most important novelist, a compelling writer and committed intellectual who relentlessly deals with the complicated relationships between politics and fiction. And Sergio Waisman is an exceptionally gifted translator with a wonderful ear and eye for the reverberations of Spanish in English. The Absent City is a book for our times, one that transcends national boundaries.” — Francine Masiello, author of, Between Civilization and Barbarism: Women, Nation, and Literary Culture in Modern Argentina

“Though clearly walking in the riverbank footsteps of the whimsical Macedonio and the noir geniuses Arlt and Onetti, Piglia is a genuine original, gifted with a fluid imagination that rushes past traditional narrative boundaries. The Absent City is a kind of mock thriller that lures its reader on, not with the question, ‘What happens next?’ but with ‘What was it that just happened?’ ” — Robert Coover

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