“Mom was like a karaoke song that we could never keep up with, no matter how hard we tried,” says Cristian, Tavo’s older brother and narrator of this short but intense tragicomic novel. Their mother is La Tunta, who, determined to fulfill her dream of being a free woman, abandons her husband and the minibus they both drive to become an independent minibus driver aboard a small papaya-colored vehicle. The boys’ father, Chuño Yupanqui, heartbroken and drowning in a sea of debt, decides to fake the kidnapping of his children to extort money from his ex-wife. Yupanqui takes the children to a house on the outskirts of La Paz, where they, silent accomplices to their father’s big lie, quickly make new friends with whom they found a kind of society alien to the adult world, yet just as extravagant.

As the days go by, the forced vacation will reveal a more disturbing side: the children’s world is a laboratory in which friendship is tested, but also masculinity and violence.

Mamani Magne delves—with electrifying, cumbia-inspired prose—into the territory of the end of childhood to explore the chiaroscuro of parent-child relationships, the way in which small acts of violence are ingrained in almost all relationships, and the abrupt awakening that comes with realizing the fragile and contradictory humanity of one’s own parents. An inspired and impetuous novel in which popular speech is intertwined with lyrical moments, and in which biting wit is not without tenderness.

The harsh end of childhood vibrates with pure cumbia, cruelty and tenderness in El rehén. Gabriel Mamani Magne moves with his vital, hard, and beautiful prose. Gabriela Cabezón Cámara

Mamani’s prose is lyrical and minimalist in equal parts. A narrative pace that articulates moments of contemplation, vertigo, and lucidness. Publishers Weekly

It consolidates Gabriel Mamani not just as a novelist but a great one. Juan P. Vargas, Página Siete

Gabriel Mamani Magne’s second novel confirms a powerful voice among current storytellers. Mónica Velásquez, La Razón

El rehén is a wild yet surprisingly tender tale of Bolivian brothers who get tangled up in their parents’ misadventures. An absolute delight to read. Jennifer Croft

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