Mogador: The Names of the Air

“In Schafer’s sensual translation, Sánchez’s prose captures the reader like a web of silken bonds—soft but unyielding.” – Charles Solomon, Sunday Los Angeles Times

 “Memorable novella about being both untouched and seized—all described in prose that mixes dreamy arabesque with crystalline precision.” – Kirkus Reviews

“Ruy Sánchez balances a double paradox: his novella about female desire, written by a man, criticizes Islamic and Latin-American concepts of male dominance. It’s a dazzling philosophical conundrum—a Sphinx-like riddle that only a king or a poet could solve. In any event, the pervasive desire in Mogador is particularized: it’s the calling out of one body to another, one spirit to another, one soul to another…. This infatuating novella is not about eroticism; it’s about love.” – William Hollinger, Boston Review