A wild and arresting tale set over the course of a single calamitous evening in Bogota… In Rosero’s assured hands, the chaos serves as an incisive metaphor for Colombia’s tumultuous history. This is brilliant.
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
A lyrical yet unforgettably intense portrait of Colombian society by one of the country’s most renowned novelists
Taking place entirely on a single evening—Friday, April 10, 1970—in a large Bogotá mansion, House of Fury tells a hair-raising story. Nacho Caicedo, a magistrate of the Supreme Court of Justice, lives with his wife Alma and their six grown daughters. The Caicedos have planned an enormous celebration in their home. But before the party even starts, the family is shocked by two pieces of news: their teenage daughter Italia is pregnant, and Alma’s prodigal brother Jesús is expected at any moment. Guests from all levels of Bogotá society arrive, two earthquakes strike, and the party descends into debauchery, kidnap, and chaos. What begins as a black comedy unravels into a grim portent of the conflict that would rage across Colombia for fifty years. Like Rosero’s previous novels, House of Fury is an indelible, fantastical work that—with its unforgettable characters and unflinching, poetic, and humane voice—brings to light Colombia’s violent history.
We would like to thank Reading Colombia for their generous support in the translation and publication of House of Fury.
A wild and arresting tale set over the course of a single calamitous evening in Bogota… In Rosero’s assured hands, the chaos serves as an incisive metaphor for Colombia’s tumultuous history. This is brilliant.
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Evelio Rosero is one of the most important and innovative Colombian writers working today. His voice is essential, in terms of using fiction to make sense and shed light on Colombia’s violent past and present. Toño the Infallible is a valuable contribution to Rosero’s oeuvre: the novel takes us on one darkly picaresque adventure after another, with the disturbingly twisted titular character. Like Patrick Bateman and Amy Dunne, Toño easily joins the ranks of memorable literary villains. With this novel Rosero has proven himself as an author decidedly unafraid to ask difficult questions about the nature and origin of evil and cruelty. This is a brave, uncompromising, and unforgettable work.
— Julianne Pachico
He affirms unashamedly that literature can and should change social reality, and that this is one of its main functions, something practically none of his colleagues would now dare to say, at risk of seeming too engaged.
— Antonio Ungar, BOMB
Throughout, Rosero’s prose, translated with lyricism by McLean, conveys the characters’ horrifying human nature with aplomb (on the clothed: “they arrive sometimes like a fantastic whirlwind, whooping with excitement, and at other times with heads bowed, as if already repenting of the great error they wish to commit”). Disturbing and powerful, this one is hard to forget.
— Publishers Weekly
Chekhov would’ve been mesmerized. In lieu of a single gun, Evelio Rosero sets up the contents of an entire armory. Building the intricate, involute procession of a single terrible night, the Colombian writer braids the many threads of his story with a candor and a knowingness that always hints towards the devastation to come. That House of Fury still manages to astound, then, is a testament to Rosero’s finesse of the macabre, his merciless indictment of his nation’s brutal history, and his utter disregard for narrative comforts.
