Novel
Deseo de noche
Not translated into English
Alonso Cueto · 1993
Synopsis
Julián, a solitary, reserved teacher, is alone one evening in a café when a woman he has already crossed paths with, Laura, comes up to him. After a brief conversation, she confesses that she has just killed a man and asks him to help her get rid of the body. He agrees, and the narrative, somewhere between thriller and love story, follows what this night brings to life between them.
Context
The novel appeared in Lima in 1993 from Apoyo; it was the author's second, after a first novel, El tigre blanco, which won the Wiracocha prize in 1985, and it precedes El vuelo de la ceniza by two years. The Spanish publisher Pre-Textos, in Valencia, reissued it in 2003 in its Narrativa series, the year in which the author left the editorship of the Sunday supplement of El Comercio to devote himself to writing and teaching.
Who it is for
A short novel in Spanish, of about a hundred pages, which can be read in a few hours, in one sitting.
Prizes and reception
Reissued in Spain ten years after its publication, it is the second novel by a future winner of the Herralde.