Jeremías Gamboa

One morning in September 2004, in a modest room in Santa Anita—a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Lima—a young Peruvian man who has had nothing in life but his own story sits down to write his first novel, fully convinced he is already a writer. His name is Gabriel Lisboa, and what emerges from his hands is Contarlo todo: a raw and epic narrative that begins with a teenager trembling as he “strings words together” in a newsroom in downtown Lima, and ends with that same boy, now a man, writing with extraordinary urgency and resolve the great story of his life.

A manual of youth, friendship, and love, Contarlo todo is above all a great coming-of-age novel—a moving account of how to find one’s place in the world and build a personal identity, of the role played by those who share our dreams, and of the drive and fear that come with writing. Above all, it reveals the blinding, utterly transformative, and magical power of literature.

“A writer perfectly in control of his expressive means, who knows how to focus on what truly matters: telling a well-told story.” Mario Vargas Llosa

“Forget literary damnation—what matters to Jeremías Gamboa is a kind of literature that offers light at the end of the tunnel.” Amelia Castilla, Babelia

“If he succeeds, everyone will know what the ‘mostros’ are.” Xavi Ayén, La Vanguardia