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Praise for
Signs Preceding the End of the World

“A dazzling little thing, containing so much more than the width of its spine should allow. I am in awe-filled love with its heroine: Makina is a vibrantly real presence in a shadowy world of constant threat, her voice perfectly rendered, her unflappable poise tested but never broken.”

Gayle Lazda, London Review Bookshop, London

“If you start highlighting what stuns you about Signs Preceding the End of the World, Yuri Herrera’s debut novel in English, every page will be mottled with fluorescent lines. Herrera writes in prose that feels like you are standing on both sides of the uncanny valley while something beautiful happens below and above you, creating a delectable unease, cut through with the simple joy of precise and surprising images. Herrera will draw the obvious comparisons to Roberto Bolaño, but Signs Preceding the End of World should also find a home next to Jesse Ball and Italo Calvino.”

Josh Cook, Porter Square Books, Boston, MA,
and author of An Exaggerated Murder

“Yuri Herrera’s Signs Preceding the End of the World is a lyrical border-crossing with touches of Kafka.”

Alexander Dwinell, Unnameable Books, Brooklyn, NY

“Herrera gives us what all great literature should—poetic empathy for dire situations in a life more complex and dynamic than we imagined. And Other Stories gives us what all publishers should—access to this world. I always want more.”

Lance Edmonds, Posman Books
(Chelsea Market branch), New York, NY

“Several things occurred while I read Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera: I didn’t stop talking about it to other book people. When I finished it, I immediately flipped back to the beginning. And then, while waiting for the train, a bird pooped on me. I could go into the beautiful sentences, the structure, or the imagery. But really, a bird pooped on me—right on the shoulder, in the most obvious place—and I didn’t even notice until I put the book down.”

Jess Marquardt, Greenlight Bookstore, Brooklyn, NY

“This book pulled me out of my little life into one altogether unfamiliar and absorbing—with the help of its bulletproof heroine, it explores what happens to people and languages when they cross borders, and recreates these new linguistic worlds in the translation without affectation. I am glad it made it over the Rio Grande and onto my shelf.”

Georgia Newman, Foyles
(Charing Cross Road branch), London

“What begins as an odyssey is steered into profound allegory depicting the burdens we are willing to shoulder for family and the prospect of a life we never asked for.”

Mark J Walker, Waterstones
(High Wycombe branch), High Wycombe

First published in English translation in 2015 by And Other Stories
London – New York
www.andotherstories.org

First published as Señales que precederán al fin del mundo in 2009 by Editorial Periférica, Cáceres, Spain

Cover image: Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transported in any form by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book.

The right of Yuri Herrera to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

ISBN 9781908276421
eBook ISBN 9781908276438

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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For my Grandmother Nina, my Aunt Esther,
and my Uncle Miguel, on their way.

Praise for Signs Preceding the End of the World

Contents

Praise for
Signs Preceding the End of the World