Juan Gabriel Vasquez has been hailed not only as one of South America’s greatest literary stars, but also as one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation. In this gorgeously wrought, award-winning novel, Vasquez confronts the history of his home country, Colombia.

In the city of Bogota, Antonio Yammara reads an article about a hippo that had escaped from a derelict zoo once owned by legendary Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. The article transports Antonio back to when the war between Escobar’s Medellín cartel and government forces played out violently in Colombia’s streets and in the skies above.

Back then, Antonio witnessed a friend’s murder, an event that haunts him still. As he investigates, he discovers the many ways in which his own life and his friend’s family have been shaped by his country’s recent violent past. His journey leads him all the way back to the 1960s and a world on the brink of change: a time before narco-trafficking trapped a whole generation in a living nightmare.

Vasquez is “one of the most original new voices of Latin American literature,” according to Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa, and The Sound of Things Falling is his most personal, most contemporary novel to date, a masterpiece that takes his writing—and will take his literary star—even higher.

*Winner of the 2014 International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award

Series: n/a

Hardcover: 274 pages 

Printing: 1st

Publisher: Riverhead Books (2012)

Language: Engliish

Condition:  Very Good + to Near Fine (See Condition Notes)

Condition Notes: 1st Edition, 1st Print Hardcover in unclipped jacket.  Tan and black boards with silver gilt lettering.. Text and pages clean and unmarked.   Dust jacket protected by an Brodart archival adjustable jacket cover.  Old bookplate residue to inside front cover, else book in fine condition. A nice copy.