His Name was Death
- ISBN-10
- 0811230848
- ISBN-13
- 9780811230841
- Category
- Fiction
- Pages
- 144
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2021-11-02
- Publisher
- New Directions Publishing
- Author
- Rafael Bernal
Description
Never before in English, this legendary precursor to eco-fiction turns the coming insect apocalypse on its head A Wall Street Journal Best Science Fiction Book of 2021 A bitter drunk forsakes civilization and takes to the Mexican jungle, trapping animals, selling their pelts to buy liquor for colossal benders, and slowly rotting away in his fetid hut. His neighbors, a clan of the Lacodón tribe of Chiapas, however, see something more in him than he does himself (dubbing him Wise Owl): when he falls deathly ill, a shaman named Black Ant saves his life—and, almost by chance, in driving out his fever, she exorcises the demon of alcoholism as well. Slowly recovering, weak in his hammock, our antihero discovers a curious thing about the mosquitoes’ buzzing, “which to human ears seemed so irritating and pointless.” Perhaps, in fact, it constituted a language he might learn—and with the help of a flute and a homemade dictionary—even speak. Slowly, he masters Mosquil, with astonishing consequences… Will he harness the mosquitoes’ global might? And will his new powers enable him to take over the world that’s rejected him? A book far ahead of its time, His Name Was Death looks down the double-barreled shotgun of ecological disaster and colonial exploitation—and cackles a graveyard laugh.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
The Name of Death
By Klester CavalcantiThe Name of Death is being adapted into a major motion picture produced by Fernando Meirelles (director of City of God, Blindness, and The Constant Gardener) and Globo Filmes, for release in Brazil in July 2017 and distribution in the U.S. ...
-
Revelation
The final book of the Bible, Revelation prophesies the ultimate judgement of mankind in a series of allegorical visions, grisly images and numerological predictions.
-
His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice
By Robert Samuels, Toluse OlorunnipaA landmark biography by two prizewinning Washington Post reporters that reveals how systemic racism shaped George Floyd's life and legacy—from his family’s roots in the tobacco fields of North Carolina, to ongoing inequality in housing, ...
-
Delusion in Death
By J. D. RobbLieutenant Eve Dallas must foil a terrorist plot in this explosive thriller in the #1 New York Times bestselling In Death series.
-
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
By Neil PostmanExamines the effects of television culture on how we conduct our public affairs and how "entertainment values" corrupt the way we think.
-
This Body of Death: An Inspector Lynley Novel
By Elizabeth GeorgeAfter a woman is found dead in an isolated cemetery, Inspector Thomas Lynley and his former partner, Barbara Havers, find that the roots of the crime trace to a long-ago act of violence that has poisoned subsequent generations.
-
Who Fears Death
By Nnedi OkoraforAn award-winning literary author enters the world of magical realism with her World Fantasy Award-winning novel of a remarkable woman in post-apocalyptic Africa. Now optioned as a TV series for...
-
The Name of the Game is Death / One Endless Hour
By Dan J. MarloweTwo novels from "the hardest of the hard-boiled"--Stephen King.
-
His Name Was Death
By J. HanceShouldn't life get easier when you die?
-
The Book Thief
By Markus ZusakIn superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time. “The kind of book that can be life-changing.” —The New ...