Mascara: A Novel [Paperback]

Ariel Dorfman (Author), J.M. Coetzee (Afterword)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 6, 2004

Mascara delves into the dark terrain of identity and disguise when the lives of three people collide. A nameless man with a face no one remembers has the devastating ability to see and capture on film the brutal truths lurking inside each person he encounters. Oriana, a beautiful woman with the memory of an innocent child, is relentlessly pursued by mysterious figures from her past. Doctor Mavirelli is a brilliant and power-hungry plastic surgeon who controls society’s most prominent figures by shaping their faces. The twining of these three fates plays out in a climactic unmasking.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A paranoiac monologue by a nameless man with a face that no one recognizes or remembers reveals a life of carefully constructed obscurity. "Chilean exile Dorfman's latest work (after The Last Song of Manuel Sendero ) is a tantalizingly ambiguous web of deceit, intrigue and obsession," said PW.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Most of this exploration of memory and identity in an unnamed city is narrated by someone who remembers all faces but who can never be recognized. Although the book was written in English, its title is more appropriate in its Spanish definition, "mask"as evidenced by the narrator's confrontation with a plastic surgeon who can make a politician look like an up-and-coming rival. The novel's conception is interesting but, like much of this brilliant Chilean's fiction, fails to sustain the power of his "poems of disappearance." Still, it includes the wonderful tale of a four-and-a-half-year-old who stopped aging after being molested. This story, told by a part of her that secretly kept growing, explaining that people are at birth issued hands used by those who lived before, is first-rate. Ethan Bumas, Fudan Univ., Shanghai
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 252 pages
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press (July 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583226419
• ISBN-13: 978-1583226414
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.3 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,812,208 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #47 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Latin American
  • #62 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > African > Central & South African

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