The News from Paraguay: A Novel

Winner of the 2004 National Book Award for Fiction, Lily Tuck's The News from Paraguay is an impressive novel that offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of 19th century Paraguay, a largely untouched wilderness where European and American figures mix with the Spanish aristocracy of the capital and the indigenous peoples from the surrounding areas. The Irish courtesan Ella Lynch, courted in Paris by the future dictator of Paraguay, follows him to Asuncion where she reigns as his mistress. Isolated and a bit lost in this new world, she embraces her lover's ill-fated dream--one fueled by outsized ambition and heedless arrogance, and with devastating consequences for Paraguay and all its inhabitants.