Colombian author Santiago Gamboa is that rarest of writers; a literary author who also writes riveting, globe-spanning thrillers. I first discovered him through his novel NECROPOLIS, a novel bursting with plots and subplots. Taking place over the span of a weekend in Jerusalem, NECROPOLIS is replete with stories packed like Russian eggs; paramilitaries, writers, even pimps, fill the pages of this masterful book. Upon reading it I was struck by the voice of the author, an important new voice from Latin America long overdue in English.
Since then Gamboa has had two other novels published by Europa Press. All three are the epitome of page-turners. Beautifully written, expertly researched and thrilling to read. I know of no other way to read Gamboa except compulsively.
Although he grew up in Bogota, Gamboa lived abroad for over twenty years. He has lived in Madrid, Rome and was also a diplomat in New Delhi, India. These experiences help inform the locations of these urgent and contemporary novels, especially our October Brazos Best, RETURN TO THE DARK VALLEY, a novel that follows a young Colombian poet, a retired- counselor and the French Symbolist poet Rimbaud. Although packed with incredible storylines, the novel begs the age-old question; can you ever truly go back home? Many of these characters are trying to do just that, making their way back to Colombia after an absence of decades. Colombia, of course, is nothing like the 1980’s, a place once ravaged by the drug war now has a booming economy and is remarkably safe. In short, it’s unrecognizable.Not by coincidence, it is also the first novel Gamboa ever wrote in his home of Colombia. I dare anyone to read RETURN TO THE DARK VALLEY and not be thrilled.
