Blood of the Dawn
The fate of three women intertwine and are ripped apart during what’s known as “the time of fear” in Peruvian history. This novel rewrites the armed conflict in the voice of women, mixing politics, desire and pain in lucid and brutal prose. Salazar activates our memories through visual and narrative references that hit us with the personal stories of these three women. The social trauma of Peru is full of personal tragedies: Salazar’s characters may be fictional, but the pain they experience is completely real.
Blood of the Dawn is a beautiful novel and, at the same time, an example of what art can do to help us not to forget.
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Original Language
SPANISH (Perú) | Animal de Invierno
SPANISH (Spain) | Malas Tierras
Translation Rights
ARABIC | Dar Alkhan
ENGLISH (North America) | Deep Vellum Publishing
NORWEGIAN | Les Bones Dones
POLISH | ArtRage
PORTUGUESE (Brazil) | Bazar do Tempo
Prizes
Las Americas Narrative Prize 2014
Reviews
“A bold, breviloquent debut novel whose polyhedral story line plunges sans parachute into the bloody chamber of political violence unleashed during the massacre-ridden years in Peru.” —Valerie Miles, The New York Times
“With this courageous and necessary novel, Salazar Jiménez refuses to let the stories of the victims of ‘the time of fear’ get away. The violence that permeated Peru in the 1980s and 1990s is unspeakable, which is exactly why it needs to be spoken. That’s what Salazar Jiménez does in this beautiful, horrifying work of art.” —Michael Schaub, NPR Books
“Jiménez’s prose is clear-cut and doesn’t sugarcoat the realities of the insurgence and the effects it had on the people of Peru. When this debut novel was first published in Spanish, Jiménez received the 2014 Americas Narrative Prize. Read it, and you’ll see why.” —Cassidy Foust, Literary Hub
“Fiery and political debut.” —Publishers Weekly
"What I loved to discover in Claudia Salazar is what I love most about novels: a stunned look of horror, curiosity and compassion." —Antonio Muñoz Molina
"Claudia Salaza urges readers to remember what cannot be forgotten: not in Peru, not in the rest of Latin America. Not anywhere around the rest of the world." Sylvia Molloy
“A hair-raising look at violence, women and Perú. Highly recommended. And visceral.” —Santiago Roncagliolo
“Among the best books of the year . . . Her use of short paragraphs, quotes, photography, testimony and the different voices, turn this death tale into a recovery of the women’s experience. Women are the ones who star in this sum of voices like a tragic chorus.” —Julio Ortega, El Boomeran
“It’s an original novel. Beyond the polemic topic, Blood of the Dawn only talks about literature. . . . Lyrical and cinematographic. If there are certain things that can’t be (shouldn’t be) told with words, we cannot silence them either.” —Sophie Canal
“This may one be the first novels to talk about this issue from the women’s point of view, and in a very effective way. . . . Blood of the Dawn is an original addition to the abundant literature on this difficult and polemic episode of our recent history.” —Javier Agreda, La República
“This incendiary novel manages to pair an honest look at a social and national trauma with an intimate portrayal of the personal tragedies within.” —Librairie Drawn & Quarterly
“Composed of very brief and stylistically varied sections—confession, interrogation, fever dream, prose poem—Blood of the Dawn rapidly switches between narratives, creating a sort of social collage.” —Ratik Asokan, The Nation
