A beautifully poetic and vivid satire of the hypocrisies of the Catholic Church. Tancredo, a young hunchback, observes and participates in the rites at the Catholic church where he lives under the care of Father Almida. Also in residence are the sexton Celeste Machado, his goddaughter Sabina Cruz, and three widows known collectively as the Lilias, who do the cooking and cleaning and provide charity meals for the local poor and needy. One Thursday, Father Almida and the sexton must rush off to meet the parish’s principal benefactor, Don Justiniano. It will be the first time in forty years Father Almida has not said mass. Eventually they find a replacement: Father Matamoros, a drunkard with a beautiful voice whose sung mass is spellbinding to all. The Lilias prepare a sumptuous meal for Father Matamoros, who persuades them to drink with him. Over the course of the long night the women and Tancredo lose their inhibitions and confess their sins and stories to this strange priest, and in the process re- veal lives crippled by hypocrisy.

Good Offices

Literature & Fiction

EVELIO ROSERO

Humor & Satire

New Directions

Tancredo, a young hunchback, observes and participates in the goings-on at the church in which he lives under the care of Father Almida. Also in residence are the sexton Celeste Machado, his goddaughter Sabina Cruz, and three widows known collectively as the Lilias, who do the cooking and cleaning and provide charity meals for the local poor and needy. One Thursday, Father Almida and the sexton have to rush off to meet the parish's principal benefactor, Don Justiniano. It will be the first time Father Almida has not given mass for forty years. Eventually they find a stand-in in, Father Matamoros, a drunkard with a beautiful voice whose sung mass is spellbinding to all. The Lilias prepare a sumptuous meal for Father Matamoros, who persuades them to drink with him. Over the course of the long night the women and Tancredo lose their inhibitions and confess their own sins and stories to this strange priest, as well as those of others. With a skilfully created, idiosyncratic narrator in Tancredo, and peopled with carnivalesque characters, Good Offices is a beautifully poetic, compact and vivid satire on the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church.

Maclehose

WINNER OF THE INDEPENDENT FOREIGN FICTION PRIZE 2009
In a small town in the mountains of Colombia, Ismael, a retired teacher, spends his mornings gathering oranges in the sunshine and spying on his neighbour as she sunbathes naked in her garden. 
Returning from a walk one morning he discovers that his wife has disappeared. Then more people go missing, and not-so-distant gunfire signals the approach of war. Most of the villagers make their escape, but Ismael cannot leave without his Otilia. He becomes an unwilling witness to the senseless civil war that sweeps through his country with a tragic inevitability. 
In The Armies Rosero has created a hallucinatory, relentless, captivating narrative often as violent as the events it describes, told by an old man battered by a reality he no longer recognizes.

The Armies: Winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

Contemporary

Quercus

En apariencia, el doctor Justo Pastor Proceso lo tiene todo para sentirse afortunado: es ginecologo en Pasto, una pequena ciudad al sur de Colombia, tiene dos residencias, una mujer atractiva, una hija pequena y otra adolescente, y una aficion para sus ratos libres: investigar la verdadera historia de Simon Bolivar. Pero los enredos en los que se ve envuelto a raiz de la fiesta de los Inocentes y los desfiles carnavalescos del ano 1966 hacen caer las falsas apariencias, y el sorprendido doctor Justo Pastor Proceso asume que en realidad su mujer se burla de el, sus hijas no le tienen demasiado en cuenta, y sus amigos se aprovechan. Cuando el cacique local la emprende a tiros contra los artesanos que preparaban una carroza burlesca, al doctor se le ocurre aprovecharla para que el grupo escultorico muestre en su lugar la catadura historica del libertador Bolivar. El vodevil da paso a la farsa y la farsa a un peligro real y una amenaza fatidica. En la Colombia de los anos sesenta, todos prefieren vivir en falso antes de cuestionar los mitos fundacionales.

La carroza de Bolivar (Spanish Edition)

Literary

Tusquets Editores

Ismael, un anciano profesor jubilado, y su mujer, Otilia, viven morosa y modestamente en el pueblo de San Jose desde hace cuatro decenios. A Ismael le gusta espiar a la mujer de su vecino, y Otilia suele reconvenirlo, avergonzada. Hasta que el ambiente idilico del pueblo se enrarece. Las desapariciones de algunos familiares extienden el miedo entre los habitantes de San Jose y parecen preludiar sucesos aun mas graves. Una manana, tras volver de un paseo, Ismael se entera de que unos soldados de no sabe que ejercito se han llevado a sus vecinos. Le cuentan tambien que su mujer lo ha estado buscando e intenta dar con ella en vano... Los ataques continuan y, cuando los acontecimientos se precipitan y se desata la violencia, los supervivientes deciden huir antes de que sea tarde. Pero Ismael opta por quedarse en el pueblo devastado. Una decision que le revelara un destino oscuro e imprevisible. Los ejercitos obtuvo el Premio Tusquets Editores de Novela 2006.

Los ejercitos (Spanish Edition)

Tusquets

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Books by EVELIO ROSERO

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Good Offices

Good Offices

The Armies: Winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

La carroza de Bolivar (Spanish Edition)

Los ejercitos (Spanish Edition)