Internationally acclaimed for the virtuosity and power of her fiction, Laura Restrepo has created in Delirium a passionate, lyrical, devastating tale of eros and insanity.

Aguilar, an unemployed literature professor who has resorted to selling dog food for a living, returns home from a short trip to discover that his wife, Agustina, has gone mad. He doesn’t know what has happened during his absence, and in his search for answers, he gradually unearths profound and shadowy secrets about her past.

On one level, Delirium reads like a detective story, as the reader pieces together information to discover the roots of Agustina’s madness. But it is also a remarkably nuanced novel whose currents run much deeper, delving into the minds of four characters: Aguilar, a husband passionately in love with his wife and determined to rescue her from insanity: Agustina, a beautiful woman from an upper-class Colombian family who is caught in the throes of madness; Midas, a drug-trafficker and money-launderer, who is Agustina’s former lover; and Nicolás, Agustina’s grandfather. Through the mixing of these distinct voices, Laura Restrepo creates a searing portrait of a society battered by war and corruption as well as an intimate look at the daily lives of people struggling to stay sane in an unstable country.

Delirium already has been awarded the 2004 Premio Alfaguara, the 2006 Grinzane Cavour Prize in Italy, and was shortlisted for the prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger in France for best translated fiction. It is an ambitious and deeply affecting masterwork by one of Latin America’s most important contemporary voices.

Translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer.

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蘿拉‧芮絲垂波(Laura Restrepo)

於1950年生於哥倫比亞的波哥大，先寫政論專欄，後寫小說。曾獲數項文學大獎，作品被譯為二十餘種文字。小說著作中，El Leopardo al Sol曾榮獲「Premio Arzobispo Juan de San Clemente」、Dulce Compañía曾獲頒墨西哥「Premio Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz」以及法國的「法國文化獎」。《癲狂》奪得西班牙的「豐泉小說獎」（Premio Alfaguara de novela）以及義大利的「Premio Grinzane Cavour」。蘿拉‧芮絲垂波是「古根漢藝術基金」得主，現居墨西哥市。