num_pages: 257
description: Armed with fake papers a handful of gold nuggets and a snazzy custom-made suit an unemployed schoolteacher with a singular passion for detective fiction sets out from small-town Bolivia on a desperate quest for an American visa his best hope for escaping his painful past and reuniting with his grown son in Miami.Mario Alvarez's dream of emigration takes a tragicomic twist on the rough streets of La Paz Bolivia's seat of government. Alvarez embarks on a series of Kafkaesque adventures crossing paths with a colorful cast of hustlers social outcasts and crooked politiciansand initiating a romance with a straight-shooting prostitute named Blanca. Spurred on by his detective fantasies and his own tribulations he hatches a plan to rob a wealthy gold dealer a decision that draws him into a web of high-society corruption but also brings him closer than ever to obtaining his ticket to paradise.Juan de Recacoechea was born in La Paz Bolivia and worked as a journalist in Europe for almost twenty years. After returning to his native country he helped found Bolivia's first state-run television network served as its general manager and dedicated himself to fiction writing. Recacoechea is the author of seven novels. American Visa is his first novel to be translated into English.
language: English
title: American Visa
publisher: Akashic Books