Those who love the country of books and the provinces of language, as Javier Marais clearly does, will love this book.
Berta Isla by Javier Marias
Oscar Cásares Talks About “Where We Come From”
Dennis: Thanks very much, Oscar, for talking about Where We Come From. It’s a textually rich book. There’s a lot happening on each page and your characters have an exceptional memorability. Let’s start with the title. Who is “We”? Who is included in that word? And are they coming from a place or a state of mind? If so, what is it? People who are coming from somewhere are going somewhere. Where is that?
Where We Come From – Six Questions About Oscar Cásares’ Novel
Oscar Cásares’ distinguished yet understated novel provoked a lot of questions in this reader’s mind-especially because of the restraint with which it dealt with volatile issues connected with illegal migrants. The story keeps to the human scale and has a rare eloquence. In the ‘book club’ of the mind, these are the questions I would like to ask.
Where We Come From
Based on "Where We Come From", the first Oscar Cásares novel that I have read, this writer is a master of understated highlights. His discipline, his control of what happens on the page, is formidable.
Laila Lalami’s The Other Americans
The Other Americans by Laila Lalami consists of about 65 short chapters each named after a character, each of whom speaks in first person. Chapter headings repeat, which is a clever way to gauge the importance of each character in the structure of the story.
Dave Egger’s The Parade
We are in a third world country that has been devastated by civil war. Its state is barely functional and beyond the capital there is societal chaos as well as signs of life renewing itself. Two contractors are assigned by a vaporous multinational to build a highway from the more developed north, where the capital is, to the entropic southland.