Canción - by Eduardo Halfon (Paperback)

About the Book

"In Canciâon, Eduardo Halfon's eponymous wanderer is invited to a Lebanese writers' conference in Japan, where he reflects on his Jewish grandfather's multifaceted identity. To understand more about the cold, fateful day in January 1967 when his grandfather was abducted by Guatemalan guerillas, Halfon searches his childhood memories and, soon, chance encounters around the world lead to more clues about his grandfather's captors, including a butcher nicknamed "Canciâon" (or song). As a brutal and complex history emerges against the backdrop of the Guatamalan Civil War, Halfon finds echoes in the stories of a woman he meets in Japan whose grandfather survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Through exquisite prose and intricate storytelling, Halfon exposes the atrocities of war and the effect that silence and extreme violence have on family and identity"--

Book Synopsis

From internationally celebrated Eduardo Halfon comes a new installment in his hero's nomadic odyssey as he searches for answers surrounding his grandfather's abduction

In Canción, Eduardo Halfon's eponymous wanderer is invited to a Lebanese writers' conference in Japan, where he reflects on his Jewish grandfather's multifaceted identity. To understand more about the cold, fateful day in January 1967 when his grandfather was abducted by Guatemalan guerillas, Halfon searches his childhood memories. Soon, chance encounters around the world lead to more clues about his grandfather's captors, including a butcher nicknamed "Canción" (or song). As a brutal and complex history emerges against the backdrop of the Guatemalan Civil War, Halfon finds echoes in the stories of a woman he meets in Japan whose grandfather survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Through exquisite prose and intricate storytelling, Halfon exposes the atrocities of war and the effect that silence and extreme violence have on family and identity.

Review Quotes

Praise for Canción

Berman Literature Prize Winner
Cálamo Extraordinary Prize Winner
Big Other Book Award Finalist
Dublin Literary Award Longlist
Kirkus Reviews "Best Books of the Year" selection
World Literature Today "Notable Translations of the Year" selection

"There is something Bolañoesque about Halfon's fictions, the way art and violence conspire to distort mythologies both personal and national. . . . The detective novel rubs elbows with the campus novel; tragedy cuts like acid through farce." --New York Times Book Review

"The narrative of Canción unfolds in an elusive middle ground where heritage becomes porous. . . . [Halfon's] métier is family: the way we are shaped by it and the way we push back on or move beyond it; how it both supports and limits us. . . . We are who we imagine we are, in other words, which is the faith that sits at the heart of family and literature." --Los Angeles Times

"Extraordinary. . . . Establish[es] an affinity between fiction and autobiography that unsettles generic divisions." --World Literature Today

"Gripping. . . . Lisa Dillman and Daniel Hahn's translation, completed in consultation with Halfon, gracefully calls attention to Halfon's insightful depiction of an identity-forming journey." --Asymptote

"Doubles down on the possibilities that apprehending history can offer us the opportunity to rebuild our world and our relationships." --Image

"At its core, Halfon's work is elegiac. . . . Canción portrays the surprises the mind gives as gifts to itself when it is free to speculate and uncover the linkages obscured by grief and time itself." --On the Seawall

"Canción brings us into the violence of 1960s Guatemala, not only through the violence of rebels and the government, but through the eyes of a family entwined in the midst of it all." --North of Oxford

"An engrossing story of Jewish diaspora, secrets, and the multigenerational impacts of violence. . . . Dualities of beauty and horror, humor and darkness, and memory and truth all knock against each other to reveal the long-lasting effects of war, loss, and silence." --Jewish Book Council

"What will impress readers are the narrator's descriptions of life in Guatemala. . . . Those able to follow Halfon's non-linear train of thought will have much to enjoy." --The Reporter

"Exquisite. . . . A gorgeously rendered meditation on borderless identity, historical traumas and ongoing repercussions." --Shelf Awareness (starred review)

"Another minimasterpiece by a master of the form." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

More Praise for Eduardo Halfon's Fiction

"Halfon is a brilliant storyteller." --Daniel Alarcón

"Halfon's prose is as delicate, precise, and ineffable as precocious art, a lighthouse that illuminates everything." --Francisco Goldman

"Elegant." --Marie Claire

"Engrossing." --NBC Latino

"Fantastic." --NPR Alt.Latino

"Deeply accessible, deeply moving." --Los Angeles Times

"Offer[s] surprise and revelation at every turn." --Reader's Digest

"One senses Kafka's ghost, along with Bolaño's, lingering in the shadows. . . . [Halfon's] books, which take on such dark subjects, are so enjoyable to read." --New York Review of Books

"[Halfon's hero] delights in today's risible globalism, but recognizes that what we adopt from elsewhere makes us who we are." --New York Times Book Review

"Halfon is a master of lithe, haunting semi-autobiographical novels." --Jewish Book Council

"With [Halfon's] slender but deceptively weighty books, which are at once breezy and melancholic, bemused and bitter, he opens up worlds to readers in return." --Kirkus Reviews

"Halfon passionately and lyrically illustrates the significance of the journey and the beauty of true mystery." --Booklist

"[Halfon's narrator] may be the perpetual wanderer, but his meditations are focused and absorbing." --Library Journal

"Halfon gives voice to a lesser-known sector of the Jewish diaspora, reminding us in the process of the ways in which identity is both fluid and immutable." --Publishers Weekly

"Part Jorge Luis Borges, part Sholom Aleichem. . . . Roaming the ashes of the old country, uncovering old horrors, Halfon becomes an archaeologist of atrocity. His work is fiction clothed as memoir. His chronicles are his mourner's Kaddish." --Rumpus

"Robert Bolaño once said: 'The literature of the twenty-first century will belong to (Andrés) Neuman and to a handful of his blood brothers.' Eduardo Halfon is among that number." --NewPages

About the Author

Eduardo Halfon is the author of The Polish Boxer, Monastery, Mourning, and Canción. He is the recipient of the Guatemalan National Prize in Literature, Roger Caillois Prize, José María de Pereda Prize for the Short Novel, International Latino Book Award, Edward Lewis Wallant Award, and Berman Literature Prize, among other honors. A citizen of Guatemala and Spain, Halfon was born in Guatemala City, attended school in Florida and North Carolina, and has lived in Nebraska, Spain, Paris, and Berlin.