3.0
American Visa
ByPublisher Description
Armed with fake papers, a handful of gold nuggets, and a snazzy custom-made suit, an unemployed schoolteacher with a singular passion for detective fiction sets out from small-town Bolivia on a desperate quest for an American visa, his best hope for escaping his painful past and reuniting with his grown son in Miami.
Mario Alvarez's dream of emigration takes a tragicomic twist on the rough streets of La Paz, Bolivia's seat of government. Alvarez embarks on a series of Kafkaesque adventures, crossing paths with a colorful cast of hustlers, social outcasts, and crooked politicians—and initiating a romance with a straight-shooting prostitute named Blanca. Spurred on by his detective fantasies and his own tribulations, he hatches a plan to rob a wealthy gold dealer, a decision that draws him into a web of high-society corruption but also brings him closer than ever to obtaining his ticket to paradise.
"A stunning literary achievement. It is insightful and poignant, a book every thoughtful American should read, and once read, read again." —William Heffernan, international bestselling author of
"This is a thriller with a social conscience, a contemporary noir with lots of humor and flair. The streets of La Paz have never looked so alive. This is one of the best Latin American novels of the last fifteen years." —Edmundo Paz-Soldán, author of
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesAmerican Visa Reviews
3.0
Moya Marshall
Created over 2 years agoShare
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“Maybe it’s just the translation but honestly one of the worst books i’ve ever read
1 star is because i wanted to learn more about Bolivian history and there was a lot of interesting stuff there #dweeb”
Lisa
Created over 6 years agoShare
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Amanda
Created almost 8 years agoShare
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Derek Simpson
Created over 13 years agoShare
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About Juan de Recacoechea
Juan de Recacoechea was born in La Paz, Bolivia, and worked as a journalist in Europe for almost twenty years. After returning to his native country, he helped found Bolivia's first state-run television network and dedicated himself to fiction writing. His novel American Visa won Bolivia's National Book Prize; was adapted into an award-winning film. Adrian Althoff is a freelance journalist and translator based in La Paz, Bolivia and Washington, DC.
Other books by Juan de Recacoechea
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