Simone: A Novel

Eduardo Lalo is one of the most vital and unique voices of Latin American literature, but his work is relatively little known in the English-speaking world. That changes now: this masterful translation of his most celebrated novel, *Simone*-which won the 2013 Rómulo Gallegos International Novel Prize-will introduce an English-language audience to this extraordinary literary talent. A tale of alienation, love, suspense, imagination, and literature set on the streets of San Juan, Puerto Rico, *Simone* tells the story of a self-educated Chinese immigrant student courting (and stalking) a disillusioned, unnamed writer who is struggling to make a name for himself in a place that is not exactly a hotbed of literary fame. By turns solipsistic and political, romantic and dark, *Simone* begins with the writer's frustrated, satiric observations on his native city and the banal life of the university where he teaches-forces utterly at odds with the sensuality of his writing. But, as mysterious messages and literary clues begin to appear-scrawled on sidewalks and walls, inside volumes set out in bookstores, left on his answering machine and under his windshield wiper-*Simone* progresses into a cat-and-mouse game between the writer and his mystery stalker. When the eponymous Simone's identity is at last revealed, the writer finds in the life of this Chinese immigrant a plight not unlike his own. Traumatized and lonely, the pair moves towards bittersweet collaborations in passion, grief, and art.