Publication
Utrecht Signatuur 2008
ISBN
9789056722388
Language
Collection
Description
Fictio Historical Fictio HTML: When Gabriel Santoro publishes his first book, a biography of a Jewish family friend who fled Germany for Colombia shortly before World War Two, it never occurs to him that his father will write a devastating review in a national newspaper. Why does he attack him so viciously? Do the pages of his book unwittingly hide some dangerous secret? As Gabriel sets out to discover what lies behind his father's anger, he finds himself undertaking an examination of the guilt and complicity at the heart of Colombian society, as one treacherous act perpetrated in those dark days returns with a vengeance half a century later.
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User reviews
LibraryThing member kidzdoc
In 1988 the Colombian journalist Gabriel Santoro published his first book, a biography of Sara Guterman, a longtime family friend of Jewish descent who fled Nazi Germany along with her parents in the mid 1930s. He is surprised to read a scathing review of the book in a national newspaper, which
Gabriel Jr. turns to Sara, and he discovers a forgotten and hidden history of the Colombian government's treatment of its citizens and visitors of German, Italian and Japanese descent during World War II. Sara's family owns a hotel that caters to Europeans, particularly Germans, who are divided between Nazi sympathizers, Jewish emigres, and opponents of National Socialism. Colombian citizens are encouraged to report Germans who are suspected of supporting their government, and hundreds were blacklisted and stripped of their livelihood and wealth, often based on hearsay and personal vendettas.
As Gabriel learns more about these blacklists and the effect a treacherous act had upon his father and Sara, we are treated to a rich history about mid-20th century Colombian society and the effect that World War II had upon its citizens, which continue to affect the country today.
The Informers is a well constructed novel, as Vásquez, through Gabriel Jr., methodically peels away layers of his family's and country's history to uncover harsh and unflattering truths. All of the major characters are memorable and well drawn, and the narration is deliberate but compelling. I definitely recommend this novel, and I look forward to his next one, The Secret History of Costaguana, which will be published in the UK next month.
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demeans both the book and its author. However, the most shocking revelation is that the anonymous author of this review is his father, Gabriel Sr., a respected law professor in Bogotá, who refuses to reveal his motivations for writing this review.Gabriel Jr. turns to Sara, and he discovers a forgotten and hidden history of the Colombian government's treatment of its citizens and visitors of German, Italian and Japanese descent during World War II. Sara's family owns a hotel that caters to Europeans, particularly Germans, who are divided between Nazi sympathizers, Jewish emigres, and opponents of National Socialism. Colombian citizens are encouraged to report Germans who are suspected of supporting their government, and hundreds were blacklisted and stripped of their livelihood and wealth, often based on hearsay and personal vendettas.
As Gabriel learns more about these blacklists and the effect a treacherous act had upon his father and Sara, we are treated to a rich history about mid-20th century Colombian society and the effect that World War II had upon its citizens, which continue to affect the country today.
The Informers is a well constructed novel, as Vásquez, through Gabriel Jr., methodically peels away layers of his family's and country's history to uncover harsh and unflattering truths. All of the major characters are memorable and well drawn, and the narration is deliberate but compelling. I definitely recommend this novel, and I look forward to his next one, The Secret History of Costaguana, which will be published in the UK next month.
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LibraryThing member rocketjk
Vasquez is a Colombian author and this novel tells the story of a very interesting historical period in Colombian history. During World War Two, the United States was very concerned about Nazi activity in South America. The U.S. State Department sent to each friendly South American government a
OK, that's the backround. The Informers is told in retrospect from the point of view of an adult son trying to get a handle on his father, a prominent teacher and jurist. When the protagonist writes a book about the war years, his father publishes a savagely negative review of the book. This sets off a process through which the narrator seeks to learn the source of his father's anger, and slowly he learns new truths about his father's past.
Much of the novel is recounted through conversations, either those we are shown directly or those the narrator describes for us in retrospect. There is much of this: people sitting down and relating long, long stories about their experiences and memories. Between this aspect of the narrative and the early exposition of the narrator's history and relations with his father, the prose very quickly (and very frequently) reminded me of Phillip Roth (if Phillip Roth had been South American and not obsessed with sex).
Vasquez comes off second best in this comparison, however, because he does not have Roth's powerful ability to create magical, captivating sentences. (Whatever one may think of Roth's subject matter and storytelling, his amazingly vivid and fluid sentences always knocked my socks off.) In Vasquez's case, this might be a case of mediocre translation. I have no idea, there.
This is a book I'm glad to have read, and I learned a lot about a slice of history I was wholly ignorant about. But in the end the story told is not quite as compelling as the subject matter seems to cry out for.
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list of suspected Nazi sympathizers among their German emigre communities and asked that the funds of these individuals be frozen. Columbia was one of these countries, and as one would imagine in such an endeavor, these lists became open to mistakes and abuse. In the end, many Germans who in fact had left Germany for South America for the express purpose of escaping Nazism found themselves on this list. Several years of having assets frozen of course meant that businesses went under and individuals went bankrupt.OK, that's the backround. The Informers is told in retrospect from the point of view of an adult son trying to get a handle on his father, a prominent teacher and jurist. When the protagonist writes a book about the war years, his father publishes a savagely negative review of the book. This sets off a process through which the narrator seeks to learn the source of his father's anger, and slowly he learns new truths about his father's past.
Much of the novel is recounted through conversations, either those we are shown directly or those the narrator describes for us in retrospect. There is much of this: people sitting down and relating long, long stories about their experiences and memories. Between this aspect of the narrative and the early exposition of the narrator's history and relations with his father, the prose very quickly (and very frequently) reminded me of Phillip Roth (if Phillip Roth had been South American and not obsessed with sex).
Vasquez comes off second best in this comparison, however, because he does not have Roth's powerful ability to create magical, captivating sentences. (Whatever one may think of Roth's subject matter and storytelling, his amazingly vivid and fluid sentences always knocked my socks off.) In Vasquez's case, this might be a case of mediocre translation. I have no idea, there.
This is a book I'm glad to have read, and I learned a lot about a slice of history I was wholly ignorant about. But in the end the story told is not quite as compelling as the subject matter seems to cry out for.
Show Less
LibraryThing member baswood
The Informers is Columbian author Juan Gabriel Vasquez first novel. It is a novel of two time frames and tells how German/Jewish immigrants to Columbia who fled the Nazi dictatorship in the late 1930's were treated with suspicion and then hostility by their Columbian hosts. There was a blacklist
The novel takes the form of a mystery as Gabriel Santoro a journalist tries to unravel the past. He has written a book about Sara: a Jewish survivor from the period, but from the reaction of his own father to it's publication he begins to realise that there is much that he has missed in his story. The book then takes us back to the war years and gives us Sara's story in her POV and in effect we are reading the book that Santoro has written. The mystery slowly unfolds, but one of the main themes of the novel is the inaccuracy of memories, either from forgetfulness or a more deliberate attempt to bury the actions of the past. Santoro questions his own role as a journalist/author and realises how the past particularly his fathers actions have affected his own life. The mystery becomes his mystery the guilt is his guilt.
Once again the setting in Bogota and then in Medellin is carefully crafted and after reading a couple of Vasquez books I am certainly aware of the geography of the country and its politics and have more than a vague idea of the journey between rainy misty Bogota and hot sweltering Medellin. There are plenty of similarities between Vasquez later novel [The Sound of Things Falling] and The Informers; both do an excellent job of weaving Columbia's turbulent history in with the plot and the characterisations, both are concerned with uncovering crimes from the past and how these affect the current generation, journals and letters from the past provide key pieces of information and the reliability of memory and artefacts are questioned.
A good novel, but if you have already read [The Sound of Things Falling] you might not want to revisit some of the same ground, however if you enjoyed either one of the novels then the chances are you will like them both. I have read two novels by Vasquez and as it is my turn to chose out next reads for the book club I will not be choosing a third by him. 3.5 stars.
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issued by the U.S.A. which made it impossible for those listed to earn a living, funds and property were seized and many were detained in make-ship hotel/prisons. The second time frame is the 1990's when the children of those immigrants are suffering for the guilt of their fathers who may have connived to get old enemies included on the blacklist. The novel takes the form of a mystery as Gabriel Santoro a journalist tries to unravel the past. He has written a book about Sara: a Jewish survivor from the period, but from the reaction of his own father to it's publication he begins to realise that there is much that he has missed in his story. The book then takes us back to the war years and gives us Sara's story in her POV and in effect we are reading the book that Santoro has written. The mystery slowly unfolds, but one of the main themes of the novel is the inaccuracy of memories, either from forgetfulness or a more deliberate attempt to bury the actions of the past. Santoro questions his own role as a journalist/author and realises how the past particularly his fathers actions have affected his own life. The mystery becomes his mystery the guilt is his guilt.
Once again the setting in Bogota and then in Medellin is carefully crafted and after reading a couple of Vasquez books I am certainly aware of the geography of the country and its politics and have more than a vague idea of the journey between rainy misty Bogota and hot sweltering Medellin. There are plenty of similarities between Vasquez later novel [The Sound of Things Falling] and The Informers; both do an excellent job of weaving Columbia's turbulent history in with the plot and the characterisations, both are concerned with uncovering crimes from the past and how these affect the current generation, journals and letters from the past provide key pieces of information and the reliability of memory and artefacts are questioned.
A good novel, but if you have already read [The Sound of Things Falling] you might not want to revisit some of the same ground, however if you enjoyed either one of the novels then the chances are you will like them both. I have read two novels by Vasquez and as it is my turn to chose out next reads for the book club I will not be choosing a third by him. 3.5 stars.
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LibraryThing member wzachmann
Story about the 1940's internment of Germans in Colombia and the writer that discovers some hard truths about his father.
Wordy book. Good story.
Wordy book. Good story.
LibraryThing member PaulBerauer
"The Informers" is undeniably a fantastic book by first time Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vasquez. The book is the fictional story of the narrator's search for truth about his father, and focuses on the experience of German immigrants in Colombia during World War Two. The narrator's life quickly
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changes for the better only to see it crumble once again, and he must figure out what happened during the 1940s that set off the change of events that sent his life into a tailspin. Show Less
LibraryThing member CBJames
One of the many reasons for reading literature in translation is the window it can provide onto experiences other than our own, sometimes experiences we never knew existed. The Informers by Juan Gabriel Vasquez provides a window on life among German nationals living in Columbia during the second
In the chaos of the early days of the war, many German nationals were added to the list whether or not they were fascists, supporters of fascists, even Jewish. In the hotel that served as a prison, it was not uncommon to find Jewish men and Nazi party members sitting poolside waiting for a friend or family member to arrange their freedom.
This event provides the background for Mr. Gabriel Vasquez's look at the nature of informing and its consequences. Mr. Gabriel Vasquez is not really interested in the ins and outs of these arrests but in those who informed and what happened to them. The novel's narrator, Gabriel Santoro, is a Columbian author of German descent. His own father was not imprisoned during the second world war but many of his peers were. After Gabriel Santoro published a book based on interviews with a family friend about her family's experience as German Jews living in Columbia during the war, his father refuses to speak with him for many years. His father sees this act as a betrayal, a revelation of family secrets best kept quiet. Why bring up the past? No one is interested anymore.
In a sense the younger Santoro has informed against his father, though he does not know it yet. Years later, the two reconcile after the father suffers a near fatal heart attack only to die six months later in an automobile accident. After his father's death, Gabriel finds out that he once informed against an innocent family friend. While Gabriel's father survived the war unarrested, the family friend was unable to find a way off of the government's list and consequently lost everything. In the end, he killed himself.
While there are several thriller like elements in The Informers, what makes it an interesting novel is this look at the nature of informing and its consequences. Gabriel's father informs on a friend to escape prison. Gabriel informs on a friend to publish a book. Later, a television crew will inform on them both for a sensational story. All three acts have complicated consequences, some generational. In the end, the reader must ask himself just how much should have been kept quiet. Are we really better off knowing?
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world war. Because of diplomatic pressure from the United States, the government of Columbia published a list of German nationals deemed security risks. Many of these men were arrested and confined for the duration of the war. After their release, they were not allowed to work in certain areas for several years. Many lost their livelihoods, their homes, the families; some lost their lives.In the chaos of the early days of the war, many German nationals were added to the list whether or not they were fascists, supporters of fascists, even Jewish. In the hotel that served as a prison, it was not uncommon to find Jewish men and Nazi party members sitting poolside waiting for a friend or family member to arrange their freedom.
This event provides the background for Mr. Gabriel Vasquez's look at the nature of informing and its consequences. Mr. Gabriel Vasquez is not really interested in the ins and outs of these arrests but in those who informed and what happened to them. The novel's narrator, Gabriel Santoro, is a Columbian author of German descent. His own father was not imprisoned during the second world war but many of his peers were. After Gabriel Santoro published a book based on interviews with a family friend about her family's experience as German Jews living in Columbia during the war, his father refuses to speak with him for many years. His father sees this act as a betrayal, a revelation of family secrets best kept quiet. Why bring up the past? No one is interested anymore.
In a sense the younger Santoro has informed against his father, though he does not know it yet. Years later, the two reconcile after the father suffers a near fatal heart attack only to die six months later in an automobile accident. After his father's death, Gabriel finds out that he once informed against an innocent family friend. While Gabriel's father survived the war unarrested, the family friend was unable to find a way off of the government's list and consequently lost everything. In the end, he killed himself.
While there are several thriller like elements in The Informers, what makes it an interesting novel is this look at the nature of informing and its consequences. Gabriel's father informs on a friend to escape prison. Gabriel informs on a friend to publish a book. Later, a television crew will inform on them both for a sensational story. All three acts have complicated consequences, some generational. In the end, the reader must ask himself just how much should have been kept quiet. Are we really better off knowing?
Show Less
LibraryThing member bookswoman
This is another DNF for me. I tried, and at times I liked the story but there was so much extraneous descriptions and chatter that I just lost interest. Too bad, I liked the idea of the book, just couldn't get all the way through it (although I did make it almost half-way through).
LibraryThing member berthirsch
The Informers by Juan Gabriel Vasquez
A novel set in Columbia during the outbreak of WW II when a significant number of German immigrants were blacklisted, forced to give up their occupations, businesses and normal lifestyles. Many were forced inland, away from the coast where they might be of
The book relates the story of Gabriel Santoro a University professor and commentator, highly respected by all. Years later his son, a journalist, writes a book about his family friend, Sara Guterman, herself the daughter of Jewish immigrants who successfully built an exclusive hotel. In retelling her life, the son Santoro, unwittingly reveals how his father informed on his German friends.
One particular family, close friends, the Deressers, find their lives destroyed. The father, Konrad, is sent away to a hotel prison, the mother leaves Bogota to start a new life never to be seen again, and likewise their son, Enrique, leaves for Medellin where he, too, starts a new life.
Years later Gabriel Santoro, Jr. and Enrigue Deresser meet up and together seek amends.
The truth though is brutal. An informer can never be forgiven and it is the elder Santoro’s self imposed guilt that eventually results in a fatal car accident ending his own life.
The writing is at times mysterious and one gets a real sense of Columbia at a given time; its peoples, its politics and its geography. A very well written engrossing novel.
A novel set in Columbia during the outbreak of WW II when a significant number of German immigrants were blacklisted, forced to give up their occupations, businesses and normal lifestyles. Many were forced inland, away from the coast where they might be of
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greater menace. The book relates the story of Gabriel Santoro a University professor and commentator, highly respected by all. Years later his son, a journalist, writes a book about his family friend, Sara Guterman, herself the daughter of Jewish immigrants who successfully built an exclusive hotel. In retelling her life, the son Santoro, unwittingly reveals how his father informed on his German friends.
One particular family, close friends, the Deressers, find their lives destroyed. The father, Konrad, is sent away to a hotel prison, the mother leaves Bogota to start a new life never to be seen again, and likewise their son, Enrique, leaves for Medellin where he, too, starts a new life.
Years later Gabriel Santoro, Jr. and Enrigue Deresser meet up and together seek amends.
The truth though is brutal. An informer can never be forgiven and it is the elder Santoro’s self imposed guilt that eventually results in a fatal car accident ending his own life.
The writing is at times mysterious and one gets a real sense of Columbia at a given time; its peoples, its politics and its geography. A very well written engrossing novel.
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Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2010)
Warwick Prize for Writing (Longlist — 2009)
Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (Shortlist — 2009)
Original publication date
2004 (original Spanish)
2008 (English: McLean)