The Shape of Things - Softcover

Reyes-Ruiz, Rafael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1687535825 ISBN 13: 9781687535825

Publisher: Independently published, 2019

Synopsis

Javier Pinto, a young translator who aspires to be a writer, meets a fellow backpacker in Bangkok who will become his wife, and a mysterious Japanese businessman with whom he decides to work for, at a cost he cannot imagine.The Shape of Things is the second novel of the Roppongi Crossings trilogy, which portrays the lives of rootless expatriates in Japan who are ceaselessly searching for themselves and others. Each book stands on its own, and can be read in any order.

About this title

About the Author

RAFAEL REYES-RUIZ is a Colombian-American bilingual author, scholar, translator, and editor. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from the New School for Social Research in New York. He taught at Oberlin College and Zayed University in Dubai. The Ruins is the first novel of the Roppongi Crossings trilogy, which portrays the lives of rootless expatriates in Japan who are ceaselessly searching for themselves and others. Each book stands on its own, and can be read in any order. The third novel, The Samurai is also available from LCG.

From the Inside Flap

With an elegant prose, Rafael Reyes Ruiz uses the narrative conventions of the suspense thriller to tell a story of chance encounters and inevitable disagreements between transnational characters and adventurers. As he did in his previous novel, The Ruins, we are taken to Asian scenarios, in this case Japan, India, Thailand and Macao, to the stories of East and West cross-cultural encounters, this time tainted by the murky shadows of international mafias.

Ignacio López-Calvo, University of California, Merced.

The Shape of Things is the cri de coeur of one who has lived globalization in the flesh. Its protagonist, Javier, comes to realize, halfway between Bangkok and Tokyo, that he is indeed Latin American. Expatriates and stateless characters parade through its pages, sometimes crossing paths and sometimes going separate ways. They drift across worlds of precarious privilege, flanked by danger and heartbreak.

Héctor Hoyos, Stanford University. Author of Beyond Bolaño: The Global Latin American Novel (Columbia University Press, 2015).

In this novel, language itself is at the center. From the beginning, we encounter characters who can not communicate well, who translate themselves, though not always accurately, and who love and argue in a language not their own. In a sense, the novel is a reflection on the process of communication, and the related issue of language as the axis of identity formation.
Claudia Mejía, American University of Kuwait.

Edition details

• Publisher: Independently published
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1687535825
• ISBN 13: 9781687535825
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 257