"Bolaño was a difficult, angry, self-reflexive writer who lived an erratic and occasionally unpleasant life. And Americans, as the head of the Swedish Academy has annoyingly but rightly pointed out, don't read much fiction in translation anyway. But when the first of Bolaño's major novels, The Savage Detectives, a massive, bizarre epic about a band of avant-garde Mexican poets, was published in the U.S. last year, it instantly became a cult hit among readers and practically a fetish object to critics. Bolaño's second (and last) major novel is titled 2666, and if anything, it is even more massive and more bizarre. It is also a masterpiece, the electrifying literary event of the year."—Lev Grossman, Time 

"Told with irony and zest . . . All seeming antipodes—whether in tone or the plot details—are right at home and perfectly natural in Padilla's realm, making for a rich, complex texture against which he weaves his spell."—Los Angeles Times

"Funny, extravagant . . . A wonderfully comic novel almost unbelievably rich in character, place and event."—Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Dancing to 'Almendra,' [Mayra Montero's] ninth novel, [is] lovingly translated by Edith Grossman: a flawless little book with a deceptively light touch . . . I devoured [the book] with absolute delight, and I'm looking forward to reading it again, and to reading anything Montero might come up with next. It's tempting to think in categories . . . but a good novel denies them, nimbly and without visible effort. This novel is great fun to read, and a paradoxical thing to contemplate. When I was done, I wasn't sure if it was an especially well-written genre story, or a literary book based upon an especially raffish plot. Perhaps there's no difference between the two, after all."—Jim Lewis, The New York Times Book Review

"Ancient and modern horrors mingle in Vargas Llosa's somber yet oddly zestful novel, the most direct examination the Peruvian writer has made of his nation's complex political problems since The War of the End of the World and The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta . . . vigorous storytelling and intriguingly complex structure—past and present mingle in the intertwined narratives of various characters—offer ample satisfaction."—Publishers Weekly

"This is more than a retranslation of a masterpiece. It amounts to a restoration: here is the magnificent book that Fuentes wrote originally, superbly rendered by Alfred Mac Adam into an English version that precisely meshes with Fuentes's Spanish."—Douglas Day