“Ribeiro’s deft and insinuating storytelling captures the uncanny feeling of slippage. . . . [His writing is] atmospheric and engrossing, and by the end Mr. Ribeiro has proven himself a master of the subtleties of subjectivity.”
Wall Street Journal
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“Explor[es] the mysteries and possibilities of life continually unfolding rather than irrevocably damaged.”
North of Oxford
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“Two elegant novellas, each an atmospherically charged investigation of consciousness, familial ties, legacy, and language. . . . These crystalline stories form a memorable diptych.”
Publishers Weekly
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“These inventive novellas are like literary puzzles for the reader to tease out.”
Kirkus Reviews
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“Telles Ribeiro’s title novella is a tour de force that takes place simultaneously in the distant past and in the present, in a seamlessly fractured continuum of time. The second novella is a complex and breathtaking work, rich in feeling, an audacious, dazzling performance. By turns delicate and humorous, wrenching and melancholic, it lays bare the souls of its characters in a manner that I can only call Chekhovian. It is the work of a master.”
Jaime Manrique, author of Cervantes Street and Like This Afternoon Forever
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“Comical and brooding, enchanting and disturbing, The Impostor triggers a unique free fall into the unnerving craters of the mind.”
Laura Restrepo, author of Delirium and The Divine Boys
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“[A] brilliant pair of tales. . . . I was amazed at the insights the author shared in these two short novellas.”
Linda Bond, Auntie’s Bookstore (Spokane, WA)
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In “The Impostor,” a man travels with his wife through Italy and recalls a family legend about an uncle who was swallowed by Mt. Vesuvius. Preoccupied by this mysterious event, he grapples with the fallibility of memory and the enigma of time. In “Blue Butterflies of the Amazon,” a matriarch, rendered mute and paralyzed by a stroke, defenselessly observes the shifting dynamics between her only son, his wife, and her husband while they play out their complex intimacies before her.
As the characters of The Impostor wander between worlds and states of mind, Edgard Telles Ribeiro elucidates their situations in surprisingly inventive ways that explore devastating questions of reality, consciousness, and loss.
The Impostor includes two novellas translated from the Portuguese: “The Impostor,” translated by Kim M. Hastings and “Blue Butterflies of the Amazon” translated by Margaret A. Neves.
Shelf Unbound “Summer Reading List” selection
Literary Hub “New Books!” selection
