The Forgery - by Ave Barrera (Paperback)

About the Book

"Josâe Federico Burgos is a failed painter turned forger trapped in surreal, an architectural masterpiece hidden behind high walls, an impish vagabond, and some very resourceful, very intimidating twins--Forgery pays homage to greats like Juan Rulfo and Luis Barragâan, traversing late 20th Century Guadalajara with the exuberance and eccentricity of an 18th Century picaresque"--

Book Synopsis

An artist races to finish his forgery of a masterpiece while held captive in surreal, menacing splendor.

José Federico Burgos is a failed painter turned forger trapped in surreal, an architectural masterpiece hidden behind high walls, an impish vagabond, and some very resourceful, very intimidating twins--Forgery pays homage to greats like Juan Rulfo and Luis Barragán, traversing late 20th Century Guadalajara with the exuberance and eccentricity of an 18th Century picaresque.

Review Quotes

"Ave Barrera eases us into this microcosmos as strange and shocking as it is true, constructing powerful atmospheres imbued with very varied sensations, ranging from dreamlike hallucinations to terror, horror and beauty." --El País

"We must pay serious attention to the work of Ave Barrera." --Cristina Rivera Garza, author of NO ONE WILL SEE ME CRY

"The plot flows in an intelligent and audacious way: It surprises by the simplicity and malice in which complex technical aspects are solved." --Geney Beltrán Félix

"A wild ride for protagonist and reader alike." --Kirkus

"A fun and entertaining story of a great literary quality." --Milenio

"Delightfully written, full of revelations ... Such a literary discovery." --Radio 3 (RTVE)

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Praise for Ave Barrera

Cercador Prize (Finalist)
Novel Tours Bookstagram Book of the Year Award 2025 (Longlist)

"Restoration is a thriller, not only thematically but - equally powerful - stylistically: Ave Barrera writes the same way Min engages in her restoration work: taking care of every word, every detail, as if it were a question of 'contradicting death'." --Literal: Latin American Voices

"An astonishing novel [...] entrancing." --Southwest Review

"Masterful." --Morning Star

"A vibrant and singular voice, combined with an extraordinary technical maturity and a fascinating symbolic density." --Irene Vallejo, author of PAPYRUS

"Perhaps the most terrifying novels of all are those that give us a clear and authentic reflection of ourselves." --Letras Libres

"The layers that make up this story range from the young protagonist's obsessive love for a man, the architectural process of restoring an old mansion, the ghosts of the past that inhabit each character, to a face-to-face dialogue with Farabeuf, the famous work by Salvador Elizondo." --Excelsior

"Nothing is gratuitous in this narrative with secret passages that each reader will make their own. We will have to follow this author. With this tremendous novel we have no choice." --Crash

"[Barrera] delves into the inadequacies, indulgence and regrets that accompany both women of today and the past: love as a construct and sometimes as a kind of sect that demands sacrifices from its most naive members." --Marvin

"The author pulls at both ends of the rope - between curiosity and fear, seduction and humiliation, sacrifice and revenge -and she does so with elegance, originality and intelligence." --La Razón de México

"Beautiful... tough... terrifying." --Tierra Adentro

"As with today's feminist struggles, our central character looks at the connection between past and present violence." --El Economista

"Ave Barrera carries out a meticulous architectural construction in which each element serves to support the others, using words with the care that a good craftsperson dedicates to the tools and materials necessary for a restoration." --La Marea

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About the Author

Ave Barrera (Guadalajara, Mexico, 1980) is a writer and editor. Her first novel, Puertas demasiado pequeñas (2016) won the Sergio Galindo Award and was published by Charco Press under the title The Forgery (2022). Her second novel, Restoration, won the 2018 Lipp Prize. Ave has also published short stories and essays in anthologies and electronic media. Since 2019 she coordinates the Vindictas Collection for the National University of Mexico. In 2023 she received a grant from the Kislak Foundation for a writing residency at the University of Florida, USA. Her new novel is Notas desde el interior de la ballena (Notes from Inside the Whale ).

Ellen Jones is a writer, editor, and translator from Spanish. Her recent translations include Beyond Mestizaje: Contemporary Debates on Race in Mexico edited by Tania Islas Weinstein and Milena Ang (2024), Cubanthropy by Iván de la Nuez (2023) and The Remains by Margo Glantz (shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation 2023). Her monograph, Literature in Motion: Translating Multilingualism Across the Americas was published in 2022. Her short fiction has appeared in LitroMagazine, Slug and The London Magazine .

Robin Myers is a poet, translator, essayist, and 2023 NEA Translation Fellow. Recent translations include What Comes Back by Javier Peñalosa M.; The Brush by Eliana Hernández-Pachón; and A Whale is a Country and In Vitro, both by Isabel Zapata. Her poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, Yale Review, The Drift, Poetry London, and elsewhere; her essays, in Los Angeles Review of Books, Words Without Borders, and Latin American Literature Today .