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A review by scribepub
Among the Lost by Emiliano Monge
This is a book of unbearable beauty and affliction. It is written with the lucidity of someone who has opened his eyes and refused to shut them again. The book’s power is not only in what it says, but in the silences that it leaves the reader’s conscience to grapple with.
Yuri Herrera
Among the Lost is masterly. Its rhythm and syntax form an unforgettable, multilayered requiem for our battered region.
Valeria Luiselli
It’s a brilliantly composed, dramatic and unflinching evocation of a world riven by endemic violence and extreme feeling, and an astute (if apocalyptic) road trip into the psychology of abuse.
Cameron Woodhead, The Age
A fierce love story … Monge’s narrative plants the reader in this dirty and tumultuous foreign land in a way that is artistically and cleverly shackling, and the resultant piece is an important insight into the horrific realities of people-trafficking in South America … An important read.
Ronan Gerrard, The London Magazine
Emiliano Monge’s concussive new novel is a love story. It’s also a blood-drenched journey through a world where kindness has been obliterated and almost every moral code shredded … its emotional ferocity is astonishing. You feel appalled, compromised, profoundly moved.You wish the US President would read it. Or read, full stop.’
David Hill, Weekend Herald
A timely novel of immigration that is as beautiful as it is horrific. It is a multilayered, emotionally complex artistic triumph.
Rebecca Hussey, Foreword Reviews
A dark vision of life on the border between the inferno and an imagined paradise, this book paints an all too real picture of what people will do for a new life. FOUR STARS
Mitch Mott, Adelaide Advertiser
In a remarkable literary feat, this tale of the dire events of one day illuminates the past, the present, and the future. While many questions remain unanswered at the end, this is a comprehensive drama of the human potential for violence and dreams in a fractured land.
Shoot Viswanathan, Booklist
The language in Among the Lost is both striking and strikingly easy to read … He channels the full spectrum of written expression, and the result hits the trifecta: beautiful, fast-paced, and completely his own.
Lily Meyer, NPR
A cunning and often powerful novel.
Adam Rivett, Weekend Australian
To read Among the Lost is to be trapped in, to borrow another Mongian phrase, a “cage of light” — a Goyaesque picture of the Central American exodus, and the horrors some migrants pass through along the transit routes in Mexico.
The Nation
This is one of the darkest books I have ever read, and one of the most powerful ... an emotionally-wrenching experience and also essential reading for those who want to think deeply about migration and human rights.
Bookriot
Blending a sense of the archetypal with a deeply contemporary story, Among the Lost is an utterly harrowing read that takes numerous artistic and structural risks across its pages ... It’s a grand and unsettling work.
Words Without Borders, ‘The Watchlist: June 2019’
Atmospheric and chilling.
Mark Athitakis, On the Seawall
Yuri Herrera
Among the Lost is masterly. Its rhythm and syntax form an unforgettable, multilayered requiem for our battered region.
Valeria Luiselli
It’s a brilliantly composed, dramatic and unflinching evocation of a world riven by endemic violence and extreme feeling, and an astute (if apocalyptic) road trip into the psychology of abuse.
Cameron Woodhead, The Age
A fierce love story … Monge’s narrative plants the reader in this dirty and tumultuous foreign land in a way that is artistically and cleverly shackling, and the resultant piece is an important insight into the horrific realities of people-trafficking in South America … An important read.
Ronan Gerrard, The London Magazine
Emiliano Monge’s concussive new novel is a love story. It’s also a blood-drenched journey through a world where kindness has been obliterated and almost every moral code shredded … its emotional ferocity is astonishing. You feel appalled, compromised, profoundly moved.You wish the US President would read it. Or read, full stop.’
David Hill, Weekend Herald
A timely novel of immigration that is as beautiful as it is horrific. It is a multilayered, emotionally complex artistic triumph.
Rebecca Hussey, Foreword Reviews
A dark vision of life on the border between the inferno and an imagined paradise, this book paints an all too real picture of what people will do for a new life. FOUR STARS
Mitch Mott, Adelaide Advertiser
In a remarkable literary feat, this tale of the dire events of one day illuminates the past, the present, and the future. While many questions remain unanswered at the end, this is a comprehensive drama of the human potential for violence and dreams in a fractured land.
Shoot Viswanathan, Booklist
The language in Among the Lost is both striking and strikingly easy to read … He channels the full spectrum of written expression, and the result hits the trifecta: beautiful, fast-paced, and completely his own.
Lily Meyer, NPR
A cunning and often powerful novel.
Adam Rivett, Weekend Australian
To read Among the Lost is to be trapped in, to borrow another Mongian phrase, a “cage of light” — a Goyaesque picture of the Central American exodus, and the horrors some migrants pass through along the transit routes in Mexico.
The Nation
This is one of the darkest books I have ever read, and one of the most powerful ... an emotionally-wrenching experience and also essential reading for those who want to think deeply about migration and human rights.
Bookriot
Blending a sense of the archetypal with a deeply contemporary story, Among the Lost is an utterly harrowing read that takes numerous artistic and structural risks across its pages ... It’s a grand and unsettling work.
Words Without Borders, ‘The Watchlist: June 2019’
Atmospheric and chilling.
Mark Athitakis, On the Seawall