Horacio Castellanos Moya’s “Senselessness” chosen among “The Best Books of 2008” at NPR

By Bud Parr

For their Best Books of the Year list, National Public Radio (NPR) chose Horacio Castellanos Moya's Senselessness among the top five foreign novels of the year. Senslessness is the story of an unnamed writer copyediting oral accounts of crimes against humanity in (an also unnamed) Guatemala as he himself spirals out of control from paranoia and sensitivity to the victim's plight. "Nationalists of all stripes can't stand it" Roberto Bolaño said of Castellanos Moya's writing, likening his humor to "a Buster Keaton film or a time bomb."

You'll find an excerpt from Senselessness here at Words Without Borders from our October, 2006 issue, Latin Labyrinths: The Next Generation, and today a post on the blog called "A Dangerous Homage."