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The Jaguar's Children: The remarkable novel from the winner of the 2023 Baillie Gifford Prize
John Vaillant
North America, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), Migration, immigration & emigration
An extraordinary literary novel of flight across the Mexico/US border, from the Baillie Gifford Prize-winning author of Fire Weather.
Hector is trapped. The water truck, sealed to hide its human cargo, has broken down. The coyotes have taken all the passengers' money for a mechanic and have not returned.
Hector finds a name in his friend Cesar's phone: Annimac. A name with an American number. He must reach her, both for rescue and to pass along the message Cesar has come so far to deliver. But are his messages going through?
Over four days, as water and food run low, Hector tells how he came to this desperate place. His story takes us from Oaxaca -- its rich culture, its rapid change -- to the dangers of the border, exposing the tangled ties between Mexico and El Norte. And it reminds us of the power of storytelling and the power of hope, as Hector fights to ensure his message makes it out of the truck and into the world.
Both an outstanding suspense novel and an arresting window into the relationship between two great cultures, The Jaguar's Children shows how deeply interconnected all of us, always, are.
More books by John Vaillant
Praise for The Jaguar's Children: The remarkable novel from the winner of the 2023 Baillie Gifford Prize
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This is what novels can do-illuminate shadowed lives, enable us to contemplate our own depths of kindness, challenge our beliefs about fate - New York Times Book Review
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Extraordinary - NPR
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Fearless - Globe and Mail
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A literary mystery, an engrossing tour de force, and a brilliant commentary on humanity's role in the physical world
John Vaillant
John Vaillant is a bestselling author and freelance writer whose work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, National Geographic, and the Guardian, among others. His first book, The Golden Spruce, won the Canadian Governor General's Award for non-fiction. His second, The Tiger, was an international bestseller and was translated into sixteen languages, and The Jaguar's Children, his first work of fiction, was a finalist for the Canadian Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. His most recent book, Fire Weather, won the Baillie Gifford Prize and Canada's Shaughnessy Cohen Prize, and was a finalist the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
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