Winner of the Dzanc Prize
for Fiction
Urabá, Colombia, 1990: A violent strike at plantations
across the banana zone leads to crops in flames, managers murdered, and the local
economy teetering on the brink. In retaliation, the banana producers finance
right-wing paramilitaries to cleanse the zone of guerrillas and their supposed
collaborators.
Through the intertwined lives of four
characters—a banana worker making a play for power in the guerrillas, a
decadent Colombian banana planter who runs his business from the safety of
Medellín, a widow in Urabá struggling to stay on the right side of the local
paramilitaries, and an American banana executive wading ever deeper into
troubled waters—The Banana Wars charts
the struggle to survive in impossible conditions, in a place where no one is to
be trusted and one false move can lead to death.
Starkly drawn from the true history of Urabá and
this period of conflict, including the unseen role of US corporate interests,
celebrated author Alan Grostephan’s latest is an incandescent historical novel
for fans of Jesmyn Ward, Roberto Bolaño, and Fernanda Melchor.