The Informers
By: Juan Gabriel Va squez ; translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean
Contributors: McLean, Anne, 1962-
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: 2008
Place of publication: London, England
Language: eng
Translated from: spa
Translation of: Los informantes
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 338
ISBN-13: 9780747592570
Copyright date: 2008
Subjects: Politics and government; World War, 1939-1945; Authors; Social conditions; German Jews; Fiction
Work titles: Informantes
Description: When Gabriel Santoro publishes his first book, A Life in Exile,it never occurs to him that his father, a distinguished professor of rhetoric, will write a devastating review in a national newspaper. The subject seems inoffensive enough: the life of a German Jewish woman (a close family friend) who arrived in Colombia shortly before the Second World War. So why does his father attack him so viciously? Do the pages of his book unwittingly hide some dangerous secret? 

As Gabriel sets out to discover what lies behind his father's anger, he finds himself undertaking an examination of the duplicity, guilt and obsession at the heart of Colombian society in World War II, when the introduction of blacklists of German immigrants corrupted and destroyed many lives. Half a century later, in a gripping narrative that unpacks like a set of Russian dolls, one treacherous act perpetrated in those dark days returns with a vengeance, leading the reader towards a literal, moral and metaphorical cliff edge. 

With a tightly honed plot, deftly crafted situations, and a cast of complex and varied characters, The Informers is a fascinating novel of callous betrayal, complicit secrecy and the long quest for redemption in a secular, cynical world. It heralds the arrival of a major literary talent.
(front flap)
Notes: UK edition