I have been really slack lately and although I don't normally follow the MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE, I have just found out that Juan Gabriel Vasquez has been shortlisted for his novel THE SHAPE OF THE RUINS. Much to my dismay I have yet to read this because I absolutely loved THE SOUND OF THINS FALLING DOWN. THE SHAPE OF THE RUINS sounds like it is going to be a page turner with Vasquez again playing with politics.
Here is a synopsis -
Whilst pacing the dark and lonely corridors of a hospital in Bogotá during the premature birth of his twin daughters, Juan Gabriel Vásquez befriends a kindly physician, Doctor Benavides. Through the doctor, Vásquez meets Carlos Carballo. A middle-aged man, Carballo is consumed by a conspiracy theory about the assassination of an up and coming politician and JFK-like figure Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in 1948. He tries to persuade Vásquez to write a novel about the murder, but despite repeated refusals Vásquez is drawn deeper into the conspiracy when Gaitán’s vertebrae, stored in a glass jar in a mutual friend’s house, goes missing. Sparking a turn of events, Vasquez opens up a second, even darker conspiracy about the assassination of another politician, Rafael Uribe Uribe, in 1914.
Even though I have not read this novel or any of the other five that made the shortlist I would love to see Vasquez take out this award.
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