MIGUEL GOMES (1964) was born in Caracas to Portuguese parents and educated in Venezuela and Portugal. He has lived in the United States since 1989, where he has pursued a career as a scholar. The author of several works of fiction, his writing explores themes of memory, displacement, and cultural hybridity. He has been the recipient of the Caracas Municipal Prize for Literature, and has twice won the yearly short story prize awarded by the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional. His debut novel Portrait of a Gentleman was originally published by Seix Barral in 2015.ADRIAN NATHAN WEST is a literary translator from Spanish, German, Catalan, and French. He is mostly known for his translations of When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut, Harsh Times by Mario Vargas Llosa, and The Weight of Things by Marianne Fritz. His other works and criticism has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the TLS, the LRB, and many other publications. His debut novel My Father's Diet was published in 2022. His next novel Aerostasis will be published by Thousand Horsemen Press in 2027.

"A virtuoso novel from which countless possible novels spring. One of the finest books of recent years. The story we all wish we had written-and, fortunately, one we can all read."-Juan Carlos Mendez Guedez"This novel is, at once, an adventure story, an erudite and aesthetic game, a lucid reflection on political reality, and a tale brimming with humour. With extraordinary skill, Miguel Gomes has written this nuanced and entertaining portrait, a radically different way of telling a Latin American story."-Alberto Barrera Tyszka