War By Candlelight - Softcover

‘Alarcon, who is not yet 30, writes with tremendous humanity and vivid fluidity. Alarcon's greatest achievement is to explore the personal consequences of a shrinking world with the same sensitivity and intensity as he considers the established horrors of history’ Glasgow Herald

‘A luminous beginning, crackling with attitude’ Observer

'Alarcon has created a vital, haunting and poignant portrait of his country and its people.' Metro

'It was bound to happen: the great new Latin American voice writes in English. Daniel Alarcón's surprising and adrenaline-filled short stories not only put him immediately on the map, it turns the damn map upside down.'
Alberto Fuguet

Daniel Alarcón is a brilliant new voice in literary fiction. War by Candlelight is a beautiful, vital and luminous first collection.

Something is happening around the globe: the mass movement of peoples, dislocations of language and culture in the wake of war and economic crises – simply put, our world is changing. In this exquisite collection, Daniel Alarcón takes the reader from Third World urban centres to the fault lines that divide nations and people, personalising the shifting realities of our own contemporary world.

These nine stories examine the lives of various characters in transition – from unrepentant terrorists to immigrants wrestling with the idea of never returning home – men and women never entirely free of the convulsive conditions that define their lives. Wars, both national and internal, are waged in jungles, across borders, in the streets of Lima, in the intimacy of New York apartments.