The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Sergio Ramírez's Divine Punishment.
A 1988 novel, this was actually slated for publication from a major American publisher in the late 1980s but, as translator Nick Caistor notes, they pulled the plug in 1989, after the Sandinistas held (and lost) elections in Nicaragua: soon-no-longer-vice-president Ramírez was suddenly not such an interesting personality, apparently.
At the time, Ramírez certainly was hot: when this title came out in Spanish he got profiles in, among other publications, The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times; you'd think with lead-ins like that the publisher would go ahead with publication even after he was no longer in political office. But no -- and it's taken a quarter of a century until the book now finally appears in English, from McPherson & Company.
A 1988 novel, this was actually slated for publication from a major American publisher in the late 1980s but, as translator Nick Caistor notes, they pulled the plug in 1989, after the Sandinistas held (and lost) elections in Nicaragua: soon-no-longer-vice-president Ramírez was suddenly not such an interesting personality, apparently.
At the time, Ramírez certainly was hot: when this title came out in Spanish he got profiles in, among other publications, The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times; you'd think with lead-ins like that the publisher would go ahead with publication even after he was no longer in political office. But no -- and it's taken a quarter of a century until the book now finally appears in English, from McPherson & Company.