New Releases by Francisco Goldman

The 20th edition of Stranger''s Guide features some of our best work, sourced from writers around the globe.

A Guatemalan-American writer returns to the Boston suburb of his youth in this American Book Award–winning novel “full of rebellious comedy and vitality” (New Yorker). A 2022 Pulitzer Prize Finalist In Monkey Boy, Francisco Goldman’s “brilliantly constructed auto-fiction” (NPR), we meet Francisco Goldberg, a middle-aged writer grappling with the challenges of family and love, legacies of violence and war, and growing up as the son of immigrants. Having fled Mexico after his journalism provokes the wrong people, Goldberg’s attempt to start fresh in New York. But even as he finds himself falling in love, he is drawn away yet again—back to his childhood home in the white, working-class suburbs of Boston. Frankie is beckoned there by a high school girlfriend who witnessed his youthful humiliations, and by his ailing mother, Yolanda, whose intermittent lucidity unearths forgotten pockets of the past. His brief trip is haunted by memories of his recently deceased father, the Guatemalan woman who helped raise him, and the high school bullies who called him “monkey boy.”

Francisco Goldman''s widely-acclaimed retelling of the Bishop Gerardi murder case, now reissued with a new epilogue marking the release of George Clooney''s production of the HBO documentary film based on Goldman''s account. Known in Guatemala as "The Crime of the Century," the Bishop Gerardi murder case, with its unexpectedly outlandish scenarios and sensational developments, confounded observers and generated extraordinary controversy. When it was first published, The Art of Political Murder exposed a cover-up of the crime and helped change Guatemala''s destiny as it emerged from decades of civil war. In the years since, major players in the case have been imprisoned, including the president of Guatemala, and one of the key suspects was murdered while in prison, along with thirteen others. Now reissued with a new epilogue to account for these recent events and their far-reaching repercussions, this is an unmissable new edition of this "extremely important book." (Salman Rushdie).

Esteban, un nicaragüense exguerrillero sandinista es llevado, junto con otros catorce hombres, desde América Central con la promesa de trabajar a bordo de un buque de carga. Sin embargo, el Urus es un oxidado armatoste abandonado en un aislado muelle de Brooklyn. La tripulación vive meses en condiciones terribles: atrapados, sucios, enfermos y humillados; víctimas de su propia pobreza y la trapacería de los demás. Cuando Esteban abandona el barco y merodea los barrios de Brooklyn en busca de alimento y socorro, se presenta una imagen fascinante de Estados Unidos, vistos a través de unos ojos poco sofisticados.

Tras la muerte de su joven esposa, Francisco Goldman encuentra una inédita estrategia para superar la pena: aprender a manejar en la ciudad de México. La estrategia tiene un efecto secundario inesperado: una crónica magistral de la enrevesada actualidad mexicana: desde los feminicidios de Ciudad Juárez y la represión de los campesinos de Atenco hasta el asesinato de los jóvenes del bar Heavens, triste anuncio de Ayotzinapa. Pero también da cuenta de sus prodigios. Es la carta de amor a una ciudad y a un país. Y por encima de todo, se trata de un memoir en el sentido más original de la palabra, en el más internacional. Una crónica apegada al terreno, que da cuenta de los movimientos estudiantiles y cívicos que están teniendo lugar en México: dignidad política, humor y anécdotas. Alto periodismo y literatura.

Romanziere e giornalista affermato, Francisco Goldman era un eterno adolescente, sfortunato in amore e allergico all''impegno, prima di incontrare la giovane Aura. Dottoranda messicana a New York, creatura sensibile, fragile e bellissima, Aura ha quella passione per le lettere e per la vita che per anni Francisco ha cercato invano nelle donne intorno a sé. Ma sulla spiaggia di Mazunte, Oaxaca, Messico, un mese prima del loro secondo anniversario, dall''oceano un''onda si scatena impietosa contro l''impulsiva esuberanza di Aura. La sua vita si spezza a soli trent''anni. La famiglia accusa Francisco dell''accaduto, interrompe ogni rapporto con lui, arriva a nascondergli le ceneri della moglie. Roso dal senso di colpa, sopraffatto dal destino e completamente svuotato, Francisco è tentato di lasciarsi morire. Fa invece quello che fa da sempre: scrive. E scrivendo, con voce lirica e amara, tenera e lancinante, esplora le più elevate altitudini dell''amore e i più cupi abissi del lutto; restituisce Aura a se stesso e ai lettori. Fa vibrare di speranza il dolore della perdita e ipnotizza con una favola d''amore che resta tale anche di fronte all''inconsolabile brutalità della morte. Grazie ai ricordi dell''uomo che l''ha amata, e attraverso i diari e gli scritti di Aura, rivivono in queste pagine momenti, parole, pensieri e immagini di un essere speciale: le ansie, le passioni, le piccole malizie, lo spirito libero; la vita con Francisco tra Brooklyn e Città del Messico, le lotte accademiche, la scrittura, l''infanzia segnata dall''inestricabile legame con la madre e dal trauma per l''assenza del padre. Chiamala per nome riesce nel miracolo di ridare ad Aura un nuovo corpo, un corpo letterario così vero e intenso che leggendo questo libro noi stessi sentiremo di averla incontrata e amata.

En 2012, Francisco Goldman quitte New York pour s’installer deux ans à Mexico. Surmontant son angoisse liée au légendaire chaos urbain local, il fait l’acquisition d’une voiture pour mettre à exécution un fantaisiste projet d’immersion automobile dans la capitale mexicaine. Il en traverse les intersections tentaculaires et les quartiers les plus reculés pour aller à la rencontre des habitants, des politiciens, et tâcher d’en apprendre davantage sur le narcotrafic. Entremêlant souvenirs personnels et enquêtes de terrain, Francisco Goldman dresse un portrait vif de cette ville multiple et surprenante. « Un panorama subtil, profondément drôle et tout à fait superbe de la ville de Mexico par un écrivain doué d’une immense sensibilité, attentif à tout ce qui l’entoure. Un livre qui charme et interpelle par sa totale originalité. » Rachel Kushner

The Pulitzer Prize–finalist shares an intimate memoir of grieving his lost wife—and confronting the troubled Mexican city where she grew up. Five years after his wife’s untimely death, Francisco Goldman decided to overcome his fear of driving in Mexico City. The widower and award-winning writer wanted to fully embrace his late wife’s childhood home and the city that came to mean so much to them. In The Interior Circuit, Goldman chronicles his personal and political awakening to the nuances of this unique city as he learns to navigate the “circuito interior,” its crisscrossing network of highway-like roads. Many regard Mexico’s capital—then known as the “DF” or Distrito Federal—as a haven from the social ills that plague the rest of the country. Goldman’s account reveals a more complicated truth as he explores the effects of Mexico’s raging narco war, the resurgence of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (the PRI), and new eruptions of organized crime-related violence. Part travelogue, part memoir, and part political reportage, The Interior Circuit “is so sneakily brilliant it’s hard to put into words. . . . It is also, in the finest sense, a book that creates its own form” (Los Angeles Times).

Em Diga o nome dela, Francisco Goldman transforma a dor pela morte da mulher em combustível para a vontade de viver. Em 2005, o escritor e professor norte-americano Francisco Goldman se casou com Aura Estrada, uma jovem e promissora estudante de literatura. Pouco antes de o casamento completar dois anos, durante as férias numa praia do México, Aura quebrou o pescoço após ser tragada por uma onda. Responsabilizado pela morte de Aura e mortificado pela culpa, Francisco entregou-se ao desespero. Passava os dias sem rumo, bebendo e flertando com a catatonia, a depressão, o suicídio. Para vencer a crise, escreveu Diga o nome dela, um romance sobre o amor e a dor da perda. Viúvo, o autor começou a colecionar tudo que podia sobre a mulher: seus diários, suas roupas, a bolsa que levara à praia no dia fatídico, o xampu que ela costumava usar. Qualquer objeto relacionado a Aura tornava-se uma forma de montar um quebra-cabeça de lembranças. Da infância da garota e sua adolescência na cidade do México até os estudos na Universidade de Columbia, dos dias de recém-casados em Nova York às viagens pelo México e pela Europa, a história de Aura é recuperada em detalhes pontuados de tristeza e saudades. Sempre pelo prisma das anotações e textos inacabados de Aura, Goldman elabora a ausência e tenta se adaptar à solidão. Diga o nome dela é uma história sobre o luto - uma mostra pungente de que só com a organização da memória é possível driblar a falta de sentido e reafirmar o desejo de seguir adiante.

A gripping and hilarious 1960s Mexico City noir Only a couple of days before the state visit of the President of the United States, Filiberto García — an impeccably groomed "gun for hire," ex-Mexican revolutionary, and classic anti-hero — is recruited by the Mexican police to discover how much truth there might be to KGB and FBI reports of a Chinese-Mongolian plot to assassinate the Soviet and American presidents during the unveiling of a statue. García kills various bad guys as he searches for clues in the opium dens, curio shops, and Cantonese restaurants of Mexico City’s Chinatown — clues that appear to point not to Mongolia, but to Cuba. Yet as the bodies pile up, he begins to find traces of slimy political dealings: are local gears grinding away in these machinations of an "international incident"? Pulsating behind the smokescreen of this classic noir are fierce curses, a shockingly innocent affair,smoldering dialog, and unforgettable riffs about the meaning of life, the Mexican Revolution, women, and the best gun to use for close-range killing.

Based on the author’s own life, this acclaimed novel is as much a long love letter as it is a widower’s desperate attempt to conserve every detail of a deceased wife through the love of literature that they both shared. In 2005 Goldman married a promising young Mexican writer, Aura Estrada. Right before their second wedding anniversary, Aura suffered a tragic accident while swimming in the waters off the coast of Oaxaca and died in a hospital in Mexico City. Devastated by his loss, and blamed by Aura’s family for her death, the author was consumed by his pain. With this novel, he reconstructs his abbreviated love story, in which the deepest form of love and the pain caused by its loss converge in an exceptional synthesis. Basada en la vida del propio autor, esta galardonada novela es tanto una larga carta de amor como el intento desesperado de un viudo por conservar cada detalle de su fallecida esposa a través de la pasión por la literatura compartida por ambos. En 2005 Goldman se casó con una prometedora joven escritora mexicana, Aura Estrada. Poco antes de su segundo aniversario de bodas, Aura sufrió un terrible accidente nadando en las playas de Oaxaca y murió en un hospital en la Ciudad de México. Devastado por la pérdida, y culpado por la familia de Aura de su muerte, el autor se sumergió en una espiral de dolor. Con esta novela, reconstruye su historia de amor truncada, donde el amor más profundo y el dolor que ocasiona su pérdida confluyen en una excepcional síntesis.

Roman-mémoire, chronique d''un deuil, Francisco Goldman rend hommage à son épouse Aura, brisée par les vagues à l''aube de ses trente ans. De Brooklyn à Mexico, il récolte les souvenirs d''une femme fascinante, brûlante de vie, et remodèle mot à mot les éclats de leur vie commune. Pour ériger, hors de l''abîme, la voix irrévocable d''un amour triomphant. « Dénué de tout pathos, ce récit est un exorcisme délicat où l''écriture affronte la mort pour nous faire aimer un être disparu. Non, la voix d''Aura ne s''est pas tout à fait éteinte dans le fracas d''une vague, et Goldman la ressuscite avec une pudeur poignante. » André Clavel, L''Express Traduit de l''anglais (États-Unis) par Guillemette de Saint-Aubin

The Pulitzer Prize–finalist’s intimate autobiographical novel of a marriage cut tragically short is “a beautiful love story, and an extraordinary story of loss” (Colm Tóibín). In 2005, celebrated novelist Francisco Goldman married Aura Estrada. The two were deeply in love, and Aura was a gifted young writer on the cusp of her own brilliant career. But while on vacation only a month before their second anniversary, Aura died in a tragic accident. In Say Her Name, Goldman pours his feelings of love and unspeakable grief into a fictionalized account of their brief time together. Desperate to keep Aura alive in his memory, Goldman collects everything he can about her, delving deeply into the writings she left behind. From her childhood and university days in Mexico City to her studies at Columbia University, through the couple’s time in New York City and travels to Europe, Goldman composes a vivid and multifaceted portrait. Filled with “propulsive drama” (The Boston Globe), Say Her Name is a tribute to who Aura Estrada was and who she would’ve been, that “will also transport you into the most primal joy in the human repertoire—the joy of loving—and reveal it with aching vibrancy” (San Francisco Chronicle).

El 26 de abril de 1998, el obispo y coordinador de la Oficina de Derechos Humanos del Arzobispado de Guatemala, Juan Gerardi, fue asesinado a golpes. Sólo habían pasado dos días desde que presentara las mil seiscientas páginas del informe que documentaba las sistemáticas violaciones de los derechos humanos cometidas por el ejército de Guatemala en la lucha contra la insurgencia que, formalmente, había terminado en 1996. «El horror con nombre y apellidos», llamaría la prensa local al documento, aludiendo a las más de cincuenta mil víctimas de la guerra civil que identificaba. Las hipótesis de los investigadores del gobierno, en una investigación que más parecía una farsa, iban desde el crimen pasional entre homosexuales, a una red de traficantes de arte sacro, cuyos robos había descubierto Gerardi. Pero los héroes de este libro son los jóvenes investigadores de la Oficina de Derechos Humanos del Arzobispado que investigaron por su cuenta el asesinato. Su trabajo de detectives condujo a un juicio histórico, y a condenas mucho más convincentes. «Goldman no sólo ejerce de escritor, y magnífico, sino que también es un detective ético y veraz» (Jon Lee Anderson). Premio Censorship’s Freedom of Expression.

Among the indigenous people it is said that two devilish women and a child live in the forest. Juan Aparicio, a rich landowner, organises an expedition and finds seven year old María de las Nieves Moran, her impossibly young mother, Juanita, and Lucy Turner, a black maid. Aparicio takes the women back to his house, where María de las Nieves will grow up alongside his daughter Fransisca, who is the same age. María de la Nieves wants to become a nun, but when the revolution triumphs and the convents close, she finds herself defiant against the whirlpool of her life.

In this acclaimed novel, the Pulitzer Prize–finalist explores the perils, passions, and adventures of a young Nicaraguan immigrant trapped in Brooklyn. Named a Best Book of the Year by Newsday, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, the Chicago Tribune, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Publishers Weekly In the late 1980s, teenage Sandinista soldier and avowed communist Esteban Gaitán leaves Nicaragua to begin a new life in America. He soon arrives on a desolate Brooklyn pier with fourteen other men to form the crew of the ship Urus. Elias and Mark, the owners of the Urus, hold the men captive, forcing them to work in a vain attempt to make the rotting vessel seaworthy. Without the means to return home, Esteban remains a virtual prisoner, haunted by the loss of the woman he loved during the war. Eventually learning how to sneak off the ship, he makes nocturnal forays into Brooklyn, where he meets a Mexican immigrant named Joaquina, and begins to plot his permanent escape. Centering his novel around Esteban, but also telling the stories of his fellow landlocked sailors, Francisco Goldman proves once again that he is “a major talent of great style and soul” (The Miami Herald). “Often very funny . . . Here, a corner of Brooklyn becomes the exotic and foreign experience, and through Esteban’s eyes it is as mysterious and alluring as Tangiers.” —The Dallas Morning News

A devout woman finds herself adrift in late nineteenth–century Central America in this novel of “deep imagination, stylistic verve, and psychological acuity” (The Washington Post). Set in late nineteenth century Central America and New York City, The Divine Husband tells the story of María de las Nieves Moran, whose brief career as a nun is ended in the wake of revolution. Forced to make her way in the secular world, María is surrounded by an unforgettable cast of characters: José Martí, the poet and hero of Cuban independence and the first man María loves; Mack Chinchilla, the Yankee-Indio entrepreneur intent on winning her hand; a British diplomat setting up a political impostor plot; and Mathilde, the daughter whose birth—perhaps fathered by one of these men—ruins María’s reputation and launches her on a journey toward a new future. This joyfully imagined novel of ideas is populated by Indian girls, wandering Jewish coffee farmers, the founder of the rubber-balloon industry, and one of Latin America’s greatest and most complex men. Written by Pulitzer Prize–finalist Francisco Goldman, The Divine Husband is a sweeping, poetic novel rich in historical detail and vivid characterization. “Goldman echoes Flaubert, García Marquez, and even DeLillo.” —Bookforum

This acclaimed novel by the Pulitzer Prize–finalist is “at once a story about a boy growing up in two cultures, a love story, and a mystery” (The Boston Globe). Winner of the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction, The Long Night of White Chickens announced Francisco Goldman’s arrival as a major literary talent. It is both a suspenseful mystery and a tale of two worlds that plumbs the darkest depths of the relationship between the United States and Guatemala. Goldman tells the story of Roger Graetz, raised in a Boston suburb by an aristocratic Guatemalan mother and Jewish father, and Flor de Mayo, the beautiful young Guatemalan orphan who lives with the family as a maid. Similar in age, Roger and Flor become close, and remain so even after she leaves to attend college at Wellesley. After graduation, however, Flor returns home to Guatemala City, where she heads a local orphanage that arranges international adoptions. When she’s murdered, Roger is stunned and can’t believe the rumors he hears about her life. Years later, he travels to Guatemala to uncover the circumstances around Flor’s mysterious death in this “wonderful book” that is as “complex as history, funny as love, painful as death” (The Washington Post Book World). “A richly layered, genre-busting novel that shuttles between suburban Boston and Guatemala City and devours everything in its path.” —Jay McInerney, author of Bright Lights, Big City

Recueillie avec sa mère par un explorateur, la petite Maria de las Nieves entre au couvent à douze ans. Qu''il est loin le temps où elle fumait des cigares de tabac sauvage dans la jungle guatémaltèque! Mais la révolution libérale que mène El Anticristo fait rage, et bien-tôt la religion est abolie. Contrainte à l''exil, Maria ignore encore que sa nouvelle liberté lui réserve un destin hors du commun...

Guatemala, fin du XIXe siècle. Au fond de la jungle, un explorateur découvre un jour une petite fille: métisse de père américain et de mère indienne, l''enfant s''exprime dans un surprenant sabir, mélange d''anglais, d''espagnol et de dialecte. Elle a appris à lire sur de vieux numéros de Harper''s Weekly et fume des cigares de tabac sauvage. Elle s''appelle Maria de las Nieves et elle est promise à un remarquable destin. Dans une Amérique centrale en pleine ébullition, Maria de las Nieves entre au couvent à douze ans. Elle est l''une des dernières novices de la sévère Monjita Inglesa, avant que la Révolution libérale menée par Justo Rufino - dit El Anticristo - abolisse la religion dans le pays. Maria de las Nieves goûte alors une liberté toute nouvelle et décide de vivre sa vie. Dans les pas de cette femme hors du commun, on croise le poète cubain José Marti, des diplomates corrompus, des missionnaires, des inventeurs, des aventuriers et des révolutionnaires. Autant de figures historiques ou de visages anonymes qui ont marqué l''éveil d''un continent jusque-là oublié par l''Histoire. Des plantations d''Amérique centrale à la Cinquième Avenue, de la naissance de l''industrie du caoutchouc à la première révolution cubaine, L''Époux divin est un immense roman où se mêlent amour, politique et littérature. Avec ce livre, c''est l''Amérique tout entière qui épouse son siècle.

For the past ten years Jonathan Moller has photographed communities uprooted by war in Guatemala. The result is this collection of portraits taken during that decade, revealing stories of life and death, hope and despair and of struggles for survival, respect and truth. Featuring 147 tritone portraits, Our Culture is Our Resistance also includes a preface by Guatemalan Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchu and other testimonies and reflections by Guatemalan community members and survivors.

Remarks given before the conference "En busca del paradigma perdido" held May 27, 1999.

In een uithoek van de haven van New York ligt een onzeewaardig vrachtschip, bemand door ongeschoolde Midden-Amerikaanse vluchtelingen en in de steek gelaten door malafide reders.