A Silent Fury

'A searing, painful, poetic, simple, extraordinary book about a 1920 mine disaster. Remembering Grenfell do we learn?' Philippe Sands----'A precise and devastating account that peers into the dark mouths of the El Bordo mine as if they were the gates of hell. In these pages, Yuri Herrera paints a portrait of poverty and neglect and reveals, once again, the way exploitation and abuse lurk at the source of all violence.' Alia Trabucco Zern, author of The Remainder----A Silent Fury is a narrative rebellion against the archive of atrocity. Herrera subverts the archive, turns it against itself, upends its silencing mission and reveals within it the traces of corporate and governmental abuse, disregard and murder. John Gibler, author of I Couldnt Even Imagine That They Would Kill Us----Like Life of a Klansman, Herreras book is a microhistory inspired by an absence in the archives. But where Ball enriches the record with context and speculation, Herrera conducts a crisp, matter-of-fact investigation. In quietly seething proseably translated by Lisa Dillmanhe parses the evasive accounts of contemporary journalists, judges, mine administrators, and civil authorities, noting the implications of each elision and discrepancy. By the end, the accident looks more like homicide, a crime quickly covered up by local officials and company bureaucrats who barely saw their workers as human . . . The book is a gripping demonstration of how much can be unearthed from the omissions of official accounts. Julian Lucas, Harpers Magazine----By bringing moral exactitude to a story long silenced for American profit, A Silent Fury joins that most vital of canons, the literatures of witness. Reading against the grain of official documents, defining what is there by what is not, Herrera bears witness to a crime that preceded his birth by 50 years. Washington Post----Herrera's quietly impassioned account has much to say to movements that now work to reclaim a buried past.Boyd Tonkin, The i----At its heart, this is not a book about a mine or even a fire. It is about blame, and what powerful people do to make it disappear . . . This is a book that demands to be read. Oliver Balch, The Spectator----A story that resonates around the world today . . . and in this short book, Herrera tells it with a poetic concision and eye for detail, made all the stronger for the narratives measured pace of revelation. 5* New Internationalist----'The book reminded me, naturally, of the disaster that is unfolding around us at this moment [COVID, 2020]. Power doesnt care about the powerless, Herrera shows us; hes talking about miners a century ago but could as well be talking about a bartender today. Though often beautiful, A Silent Fury is not pleasurable reading; it is, nevertheless, essential.' Rumaan Alam, The New Republic----Herrera knows how to plot an intense plot and handle an original style, as capable of revealing a miserable and anguished social reality as well as elevating with poetry the humble and everyday life in order to reach symbolic proportions. Arturo Garca Ramos, ABC----What Yuri Herrera does is Literature, beyond genres or labels. He amply proves it again now, after five years of silence, with a fascinating story that reads like a novel. Matas Nspolo, El Mundo----With his characteristic sharp prose and exciting rhythm, Herrera is one of the most remarkable writers of Latin America. The El Bordo Mine Fire is an impeccable exercise of journalism. Jaime G. Mora, ABC Cultural----With his trio of books set in the narco-war borderlands, Herrera has shown that hes a master of the short, tense fiction, and with A Silent Fury, he proves it further, this time venturing into a more historical mode. Remezcla----Booksellers on A Silent Fury----A plaque. A press release. A mislabeled photograph. Like a paleontologist drawing a beas

Yuri Herrera studied Politics in Mexico, Creative Writing in El Paso and took his PhD in literature at Berkeley. His first novel to appear in English, Signs Preceding the End of the World, won the 2016 Best Translated Book Award after publishing to great critical acclaim in 2015, when it featured on many Best-of-Year lists, including The Guardian's Best Fiction and NBC News's Ten Great Latino Books. His second novel The Transmigration of Bodies (2016 in English) and Kingdom Cons (2017 in English) were also published to acclaim, including the Dublin Literary Award (former Impac prize) shortlisting of The Transmigration of Bodies. He currently teaches at the University of Tulane, in New Orleans. The El Bordo Mine Fire is his fourth book, and his first of non-fiction. Lisa Dillman has translated a number of Spanish and Latin American writers. Some of her recent translations include Rain Over Madrid, Such Small Hands and The Right Intention by Andres Barba and Yuri Herrera's three novels. She won the 2016 Best Translated Book Award for Herrera's Signs Preceding the End of the World. She teaches in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.