Carlos Manuel Álvarez’s False War (Graywolf Press), translated by Natasha Wimmer, was published on November 4, 2025. Earlier today, City of Asylum presented Álvarez and Wimmer, in a conversation moderated by writer and curator Anderson Tepper. Tepper writes, “What a combination—Carlos Manuel Álvarez, one of the rising voices of Cuban and Latin American literature, and Natasha Wimmer, perhaps the leading Spanish-language translator of our time (translator of Roberto Bolaño’s masterworks, The Savage Detectives and 2666, among others).” So sorry to have missed announcing this event, but here is more information on the book!
Description: The characters in False War are ambivalent castaways living lives of deep estrangement from their home country, stranded in an existential no-man’s land. Some of them want to leave and can’t, others do leave but never quite get anywhere.
In this multivoiced novel, employing a dazzling range of narrative styles from noir to autofiction, Carlos Manuel Álvarez brings together the stories of many people from all walks of life through a series of interconnected daisy chains. From Havana to Mexico City to Miami, from New York to Paris to Berlin, whether toiling in a barber shop, roaring in Yankee Stadium, lost in the Louvre, intensely competing in a chess hall in Cuba, plotting a theft, or on a junket for émigré dissidents in Berlin, these characters learn that while they may seem to be on the move, in reality they are paralyzed, immersed in a fake war waged with little real passion.
The fractured narrative, filled with extraordinary portraits of ordinary people, reflects the disintegration that comes from being uprooted. At the same time, it is full of tenderness, moments of joy and profound release. False War confirms Carlos Manuel Álvarez as one of the indispensable voices of his generation in Latin American letters.
Carlos Manuel Álvarez is the author of The Tribe and The Fallen. He has been included in Granta’s “Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists” as well as Bogotá39’s best Latin American writers under 40. He lives in New York City.
Natasha Wimmer is the translator of nine books by Roberto Bolaño, including The Savage Detectives and 2666. Her recent translations include Nona Fernández’s Voyager and Álvaro Enrigue’s You Dreamed of Empires.
Anderson Tepper has been a guest curator of PEN America’s World Voices Festival and is a longstanding member of the international committee of the Brooklyn Book Festival. He writes on books and authors for a variety of publications, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and World Literature Today. Anderson also serves on the City of Asylum Advisory Board.
For purchasing information, see City of Asylum Bookstore
For more information, see https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/false-war and https://cityofasylum.org/program/world-literature-carlos-manuel-alvarez/
Carlos Manuel Álvarez’s False War (Graywolf Press), translated by Natasha Wimmer, was published on November 4, 2025. Earlier today, City of Asylum presented Álvarez and Wimmer, in a conversation moderated by writer and curator Anderson Tepper. Tepper writes, “What a combination—Carlos Manuel Álvarez, one of the rising voices of Cuban and Latin American literature, and Natasha Wimmer, perhaps
