Description
Salvadorean society is shocked by the gruesome murder of a young upper-class woman, and no one more so than her best friend Laura. In her first-person solo narration, Laura rattles on and on about her disbelief and horror at the evils all around her—but who’s that in the mirror?
Castellanos Moya’s Senselessness was acclaimed “an innovative and invigoratingly twisted piece of art” (Village Voice) and “a brilliantly crafted moral fable, as if Kafka had gone to Latin America for his source materials” (Russell Banks).
Reviews
"The only writer of my generation who knows how to narrate the horror, the secret Vietnam that Latin America was for a long time." — Roberto Bolaño
"He has put El Salvador on the literary map." — Natasha Wimmer, The Nation
"Like Kafka, Moya keeps an ironic eye trained on the way in which bureaucracies become corollaries of dictatorships….His leaps from absurdity to terror and back again are like something out of The Castle." — Tommy Wallach, The World (PRI)
"Castellanos Moya's narrator is delightfully paranoid and obsessed." — Joshua Marcus, Times Literary Supplement
"Humor amid the madness and evil. Don't let the breezy, often funny and frequently irreverent tone fool you." — John Greenya, Sunday Washington Times
"Dark and comic, at turns violent and oddly erotic." — Nate Martin, Stopsmiling.com
"This book reads beautifully…and is quite captivating. Looks like Moya's reputation will continue to grow for years to come." — Chad Post, Three Percent
"[It] careen[s] with such giddy enthusiasm." — Don Sjoerdsma, Northwest Phoenix
Also By: Horacio Castellanos Moya 
Revulsion: Thomas Bernhard in San Salvador
Paperback, 2016
The 1997 novel that put Horacio Castellanos Moya on the map, now published for the first time in English
Revulsion: Thomas Bernhard in San Salvador
E Book, 2016
The 1997 novel that put Horacio Castellanos Moya on the map, now published for the first time in English
The Dream of My Return
Paperback, 2015
A high-octane paranoia deranges a writer and fuels a dangerous plan to return home to El Salvador.
The Dream of My Return
E Book, 2015
A high-octane paranoia deranges a writer and fuels a dangerous plan to return home to El Salvador.
Tyrant Memory
Paperback, 2011
Castellanos Moya’s most thrilling book to date, about the senselessness of tyranny.
Also By: Katherine Silver
Festival & Game of the Worlds
Paperback, 2024
Oddly twinned masterpieces by one of the greatest fabulists of any age: past, present, or 40,000 years in the future
Battles in the Desert (40th Anniversary Edition)
Paperback, 2021
This heart-breaking novella is a key work of 20th-century dystopian Mexican literature and sadly all too apropos today
Battles in the Desert (40th Anniversary Edition)
E Book, 2021
This heart-breaking novella is a key work of 20th-century dystopian Mexican literature and sadly all too apropos today
Artforum
Paperback, 2020
One man’s obsession with Artforum magazine takes us on a hilarious journey to the ultimate meaning of the very creation of art
Artforum
E Book, 2020
One man’s obsession with Artforum magazine takes us on a hilarious journey to the ultimate meaning of the very creation of art
