ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SANTIAGO RONCAGLIOLO, a Peruvian prose writer, dramatist, screenplay writer, journalist and translator, was born in Lima in 1975. He spent some time during his childhood in Mexico, where his family fled after Morales Bermúdez’ coup d’état in Peru. He graduated in Linguistics and Literature from the Catholic University in Lima. He has written screenplays for several Latin American telenovelas. He lives in Spain, where he moved in 2000 to become a writer. Roncagliolo gained a wider popularity after receiving the prestigious ,,Alfaguara Premio” award (2006) for his novel Red April (Abril rojo).
Four years later, the British magazine Granta listed him among the 22 best writers in Spain younger than 35. Among others, Roncagliolo has authored: the novels Prudeness (Pudor, 2004), Memories of a Lady (Memorias de una dama, 2009), The Uruguayan Lover (El amante uruguayo, 2012), Oscar and the Women (Oscar y las mujeres, 2013), The Night of the Pins (La noche de los alfileres, 2016); the books of essays: Jet Lag (2005), the drama Your Friends Would Never Harm You (Tus amigos nunca te harían daño, 1999) and several children’s books, the most important among which is The Great Escape (El gran escape, 2013).
A winner of several literary awards, among which are ,,The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize” (2011) and the children’s literary award ,,Barco de vapor” 2013, he also writes for the Spanish El Pais and several Latin American dailies.
Serbian translations have been published of his novels Red April (Laguna, 2014) and Prudeness (Agora, 2016).
The Peruvian writer Santiago Roncagliolo is one of the best-known authors of his generation, who was selected among 39 most promising Latin American writers younger than 39 at the Bogota festival in 2007.
El Pais and El Tiempo
Carlos Fuentes listed Red April among the canonic Hispano-American novels in his 2011 essayistic work The Great Latin American Novel.
Juan E. de Castro, The contemporary Spanish-American novel: Bolaño and after, 2013
After Red April, Santiago Roncagliolo has reached the ultimate heights of the novel as a literary genre and has become the Peruvian writer with the largest number of successful books published in the last ten years. His diverse approaches to literature – novel in particular – have no equal in the Spanish language.
El Comercio, Peru
The magazine Granta listed him among the best writers in Spanish of his generation. The Wall Street Journal considers him as one of the heirs of Gabriel Garcia Márquez.
LA Times
Santiago Roncagliolo’s new novel sings a polyphonic ode in four voices to his hometown. The book contains harmonic elements (sex, friendship, adventures of mates), represents chaos (violence, power, troubles) and depicts other dimensions, which are not to be revealed. All these voices sound the praises and paint in different hues The Night of the Pins (Alfaguara), his latest novel.
El Pais