«Sólo un escritor como Emiliano Monge pudo escribir esta novela excepcional. Si ya antes se colocó a la cabeza de la narrativa contemporánea, con Los vivos logra una ruptura radical en el modo de escribir sobre nuestro turbulento presente. --Fernanda Melchor

México? Podría ser. Pero también podría ser su revés. Así como el tiempo podría ser éste o cualquiera y los personajes quienes son, además de quienes fueron y serán. En estas páginas, llenas de asombro y belleza, pérdidas y hallazgos, la realidad es un eterno deshacerse y rehacerse. Vestigia, cuyo pasado parece impenetrable, necesita recordar para entender su dolor; Hincapié desea cambiar su relación con los otros, pues no tolera vivir con el temor a que dejen de estar; el Niño, que irrumpe como relámpago, quiere dotar de sentido a las palabras y a las cosas, asomándose al silencio y al vacío, y Lucía, que persigue la lengua de los muertos, busca desentrañar qué hay tras la presencia y la ausencia. En Los vivos, novela sobre la desaparición y la aparición, tanto de seres como de cosas, parición Emiliano Monge vuelve a descifrar un territorio de contradicciones, haciéndonos ver lo que no sabíamos ver, mientras oculta aquello que creíamos que estaba ahí. Una novela única, para leer y releer.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

Only a writer like Emiliano Monge could have written this exceptional novel. He was already at the forefront of contemporary narrative, and with The Living he manages to make a radical rupture in the way we write about our turbulent present. --Fernanda Melchor

Mexico? It could be. But it could also be its reverse. Just as this could be the time, or any other, and the characters who they are, apart from who they were and who they will be. In these pages, filled with wonder and beauty, losses and findings, reality is an eternal doing and undoing. Vestige, whose past seems impenetrable, needs to remember in order to understand her pain; Emphasis wishes to change his relationship with others, but still cannot tolerate living in fear of them not being there; the Boy, who strikes like lightning, wants to make sense of words and things, gazing into silence and emptiness, and Lucia, chasing the tongue of the dead, wishes to unravel what lies behind presence and absence. In The Living, a novel about disappearing and appearing, as much about beings as about things, Emiliano Monge deciphers yet again a land of contradictions, making us see what we didn't know how to see, while he conceals that which we thought was there. A unique novel to read and re-read.

« Las ficciones de Monge son la met fora exacta de la locura del mundo . -The Observer

Todo, tal y como lo conoc amos, ha cambiado.

El calor es agobiante se ha agrietado el cielo y la geograf a es otra.

La humanidad, adem s, se ha du­plicado. Entonces se desata una guerra global entre fuerzas igualadas cuya clave parecer an ser las ni as y ni os de los orfanatorios. En una de esas instituciones comienza la m s arriesgada y madura de las novelas de Emiliano Monge.

Tejer la oscuridad es una distop a que reinventa nuestros mitos y desentra a nuestra idea de indivi­duo y colectividad, mientras nos cuenta la liberaci n de un grupo de muchachos, as como la di spora que emprender n acompa ados de su descendencia atravesando un mundo desolado, huyendo de perse­guidores incansables y buscando el sitio que les fuera prometido, donde podr n rendir culto a sus dioses, enhebrar un nuevo lenguaje y habitar la oscuridad.

Cruzada por un sinf n de voces, Tejer la oscuridad presenta la eterna lucha entre el nosotros y el yo, deja que resuene en sus p ginas el eco de libros antiguos y de diversas formas de escritura olvidadas y permite al lector imaginar otra forma de entender el tiempo, el espacio, la materia, el amor y la amistad.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

Monge's fiction is the exact metaphor for the world's madness. -The Observer

Everything, as we knew it, has changed.

The heat is overbearing, the sky has cracked, and the geography has changed.

Additionally, humanity has doubled. Then a global war breaks out between equal forces whose key seems to be the girls and boys in orphanages. Emiliano Monge's riskiest and most complete novels begins in one of these institutions.

Weaving Darkness is a dystopia that reinvents our myths and clears up our idea of individuality and community. While also telling us about the freeing of a group of kids, crossing a gloomy world, fleeing from tireless persecutors, and looking for the place that was promised to them, where they can worship their gods, create a new language, and inhabit the darkness.

Crossed by countless voices, Weaving Darkness presents the eternal struggle between the self and the us; it allows the echo of old books, and other forgotten forms of writing, to resonate within its pages; and allows readers to imagine another way of understanding time, space, matter, love, and friendship.

XXVIII Premio Jaén de novela.

«Ésta es la historia de un hombre que sin saberlo fue su siglo y la de un lugar que se condensa aquí en un nombre propio; Germán Alcántara Carnero. Una historia de violencia incontenible y natural que exige ser contada como una biografía discontinua y que no debía empezar aquí

Así comienza El cielo árido, la historia de Germán Alcántara Carnero: de los hombres y las mujeres que vivieron a su lado y de la meseta en la que Monge destila las esencias de una Latinoamérica salvaje. Un lugar árido, donde las únicas constantes parecieran ser la soledad, la violencia, la lealtad y la lucha cotidiana por hacerse con una escala de valores que dote de sentido a la existencia.

Narrada a partir de los instantes memorables de la vida de Germán -la huida de un par de muchachos a otra patria, los avatares de una guerra interminable, la desaparición de una niña, la rebelión de unos creyentes, el enfrentamiento de un hijo con su padre, el nacimiento de un bebé enfermo, el encasquetarse de un arma, la contemplación de un asesinato-, El cielo árido es un viaje al corazón del ser humano y un desafío al lector, oportunidad que sólo da la gran literatura.

«Impactante y sugestiva, consecuencia de un mundo interior abrumador, la novela de Monge se queda instalada en la memoria -Daniel Sada.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

28th Jaén Novel Prize.

This dark, sprawling novel was the English language debut of Emiliano Monge, a Mexican writer who is often compared to the US literary superstar Cormac McCarthy. Written in a tone that evokes McCarthy's unrelenting classic Blood Meridian, the novel tells the story of Germán Alcántara Carnero, a dangerous campesino fighting to survive in rural 20th century Mexico, and also a metaphor for the spiraling violence of contemporary Mexican society. ―Culture Trip

Set on a desolate, unnamed mesa, Emiliano Monge's The Arid Sky distills the essence of a Latin America ruthlessly hollowed out by uncontainable violence. This is an unsparing yet magnificent land, whose only constants are loneliness, hatred, loyalty, and the struggle to return some small measure of meaning to life.

Thundering and inventive, The Arid Sky narrates the signature moments in the life of Germán Alcantara Carnero: a man who is both exaltedly, viscerally real and is an ageless, nameless being capable of embodying entire eras, cultures, and conflicts. Monge's roadmap―an escape across borders, the disappearance of a young girl, the confrontation between a father and his son, the birth of a sick child, and murder―takes readers on a journey to the core of humankind that posits a challenge of the kind only great literature can pose.

...An imagined life, with Faulkner's tragic sensibility and Beckett's relentless grief.-- Ricardo Baixeras, El Periodico

From one of Mexico's leading writers--a memoir about three men who are driven to escape the confines of their traditional lives and roles.

In 1958, Carlos Monge McKey sneaks out of his home in the middle of the night to fake his own death. He does not return for four years.

A decade later, his son, Carlos Monge Sánchez, deserts his family too, joining a guerrilla army of Mexican revolutionaries.

Their stories are unspooled by grandson and son Emiliano, a writer, who also chooses to escape reality, by creating fictions to run away from the truth.

What Goes Unsaid is an extraordinary memoir that delves into the fractured relationships between fathers and sons, grandfathers and grandsons; that disinters the ugly notions of masculinity and machismo that all men carry with them--especially in a patriarchal culture like Mexico. It is the story of three men, who--each in his own way--flee their homes and families in an attempt to free themselves.

Praise for Among the Lost

Among the Lost is masterly. Its rhythm and syntax form an unforgettable, multilayered requiem for our battered region.
--Valeria Luiselli

The relentless pace and vivid language ... brings home the physical and emotional anxiety of those who have risked everything in the faint hope of a better life across the border ... Monge shows how the corruption of the soul afflicts young and old alike when the powerful prey on the vulnerable, yet he also creates nuanced villains grappling with self-doubt and fear. In a remarkable literary feat, this tale of the dire events of one day illuminates the past, the present, and the future. While many questions remain unanswered at the end, this is a comprehensive drama of the human potential for violence and dreams in a fractured land.
--Shoba Viswanathan, Booklist, starred review

This is a book of unbearable beauty and affliction. It is written with the lucidity of someone who has opened his eyes and refused to shut them again. The book's power is not only in what it says, but in the silences that it leaves the reader's conscience to grapple with.
--Yuri Herrera

The language in Among the Lost is both striking and strikingly easy to read ... He channels the full spectrum of written expression, and the result hits the trifecta: beautiful, fast-paced, and completely his own.
--Lily Meyer, NPR

[A] timely novel of immigration that is as beautiful as it is horrific. It is a multilayered, emotionally complex artistic triumph.>
--Foreword Reviews

De vuelta al territorio autobiográfico, Emiliano Monge ha conseguido en esta nueva novela algo que parecía imposible: una novela que es un retrato a la vez que un mural; el retrato de una madre y el mural del mundo en que vivimos.

Esta es la historia de una mujer que se enfrentó a su tiempo y a su mundo, pero es también la historia de ese tiempo y de ese mundo: la segunda mitad del siglo XX y las primeras décadas del siglo en el que estamos.

En Justo antes del final, la vida de la protagonista, una vida marcada por la invisibilidad, la enfermedad, la locura y las violencias, pero también por la resiliencia, la voluntad, los afectos y el cuidado de sí y de los otros, entra en tensión con algunos de los grandes acontecimientos de la vida pública: la llegada de la píldora anticonceptiva, la invención de la cámara instantánea, el desarrollo de tratamientos para las enfermedades mentales, la carrera espacial y la carrera por la prótesis auditiva perfecta, el descubrimiento de la antimateria, el diagnóstico del espectro Asperger, las investigaciones para alargar la vida, el protocolo de Kioto...

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

Emiliano Monge has achieved in his new novel something that seemed impossible: Writing an autobiographical book that is both a portrait and a mural; the portrait of a mother and the mural of the world we live in.

This is the story of a woman that challenged her time and the world. But it is also the story of such a time and such a world--the second half of the twentieth century and the first decades of the twenty-first.

In Right Before the End, the protagonist's life--a life marked by invisibility, sickness, insanity, and violence, but also by resilience, personal will, affections, and the care for oneself and others--comes into conflict with some of the greatest events in public life: the rise of the birth-control pill, the invention of the instant camera, the development of treatments for mental illnesses, the space race and the race for the perfect hearing prosthesis, the discovery of antimatter, the diagnosis of Asperger's spectrum disorders, research to prolong life, Kyoto's protocol...

This dark, sprawling novel is the English language debut of Emiliano Monge, a Mexican writer who is often compared to the US literary superstar Cormac McCarthy. Written in a tone that evokes McCarthy's unrelenting classic Blood Meridian, the novel tells the story of Germ n Alc ntara Carnero, a dangerous campesino fighting to survive in rural 20th century Mexico, and also a metaphor for the spiraling violence of contemporary Mexican society. --Culture Trip

Set on a desolate, unnamed mesa, Emiliano Monge's The Arid Sky distills the essence of a Latin America ruthlessly hollowed out by uncontainable violence. This is an unsparing yet magnificent land, whose only constants are loneliness, hatred, loyalty, and the struggle to return some small measure of meaning to life.

Thundering and inventive, The Arid Sky narrates the signature moments in the life of Germ n Alcantara Carnero: a man who is both exaltedly, viscerally real and is an ageless, nameless being capable of embodying entire eras, cultures, and conflicts. Monge's roadmap--an escape across borders, the disappearance of a young girl, the confrontation between a father and his son, the birth of a sick child, and murder--takes readers on a journey to the core of humankind that posits a challenge of the kind only great literature can pose.

sta es una historia sobre la necesidad de escapar de los dem s y de uno mismo, sobre el abandono, el amor y los machismos, sobre aquello que se dice, aquello que se insin a y aquello que se calla, sobre la mentira y las diferentes violencias que enfrentamos.

No contar todo, novela de no ficci n, presenta la saga de los Monge, al mismo tiempo que cuenta la historia del pa s que habitaron. El abuelo, Carlos Monge McKey, descendiente de irlandeses, finge su propia muerte, haciendo estallar la cantera de su cu ado. El padre, Carlos Monge S nchez, rompe con su familia y con su propia historia para irse a Guerrero, donde, convertido en guerrillero, luchar al lado de Genaro V zquez. El hijo, Emiliano Monge Garc a, nacer enfermo y vivir sus primeros a os hospitalizado, por lo que ser considerado como el d bil de su familia y por lo cual erigir un mundo de ficciones que con los a os se ir haciendo m s y m s complejo y del que despu s ya no podr escapar, m s que escapando de todo.

No contar todo es la genealog a de una triple huida, el recordatorio de que una desbandada tambi n puede ser una familia.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

This is a story about the necessity to escape from others and from oneself; about neglect, love, and machismo; about what is said, what is insinuated, and what is left unsaid; about lies and the various forms of violence we face.

Not Telling Everything, a non-fiction novel, presents the saga of the Monge family while telling the story of the country they lived in. The grandfather, Carlos Monge McKey, descendant of Irishmen, fakes his own death, allowing his brother-in-law's quarry to explode. The father, Carlos Monge S nchez, breaks with his family and with his own history to go to Guerrero, where, as a guerrilla, he fights alongside Genaro V zquez. The son, Emiliano Monge Garc a, is born ill and lives his earliest years in the hospital, for which he is considered the weak one of the family, and because of which he builds a world of fiction that becomes more and more complex over the years, eventually preventing him from escaping it unless he is escaping everything.

Not Telling Everything is the genealogy of a triple escape, the reminder that a jailbreak can also be a family.

...An imagined life, with Faulkner's tragic sensibility and Beckett's relentless grief.-- Ricardo Baixeras, El Periodico

From one of Mexico's leading writers--a memoir about three men who are driven to escape the confines of their traditional lives and roles.

In 1958, Carlos Monge McKey sneaks out of his home in the middle of the night to fake his own death. He does not return for four years.

A decade later, his son, Carlos Monge Sánchez, deserts his family too, joining a guerrilla army of Mexican revolutionaries.

Their stories are unspooled by grandson and son Emiliano, a writer, who also chooses to escape reality, by creating fictions to run away from the truth.

What Goes Unsaid is an extraordinary memoir that delves into the fractured relationships between fathers and sons, grandfathers and grandsons; that disinters the ugly notions of masculinity and machismo that all men carry with them -- especially in a patriarchal culture like Mexico. It is the story of three men, who -- each in his own way -- flee their homes and families in an attempt to free themselves.

Praise for Among the Lost

Among the Lost is masterly. Its rhythm and syntax form an unforgettable, multilayered requiem for our battered region.
--Valeria Luiselli

The relentless pace and vivid language... brings home the physical and emotional anxiety of those who have risked everything in the faint hope of a better life across the border... Monge shows how the corruption of the soul afflicts young and old alike when the powerful prey on the vulnerable, yet he also creates nuanced villains grappling with self-doubt and fear. In a remarkable literary feat, this tale of the dire events of one day illuminates the past, the present, and the future. While many questions remain unanswered at the end, this is a comprehensive drama of the human potential for violence and dreams in a fractured land. STARRED REVIEW
--Shoba Viswanathan, Booklist

This is a book of unbearable beauty and affliction. It is written with the lucidity of someone who has opened his eyes and refused to shut them again. The book's power is not only in what it says, but in the silences that it leaves the reader's conscience to grapple with.>
--Yuri Herrera

The language in Among the Lost is both striking and strikingly easy to read...He channels the full spectrum of written expression, and the result hits the trifecta: beautiful, fast-paced, and completely his own. >
--Lily Meyer, NPR

[A] timely novel of immigration that is as beautiful as it is horrific. It is a multilayered, emotionally complex artistic triumph. STARRED REVIEW>
--Foreword Reviews