His Name was Death

Reviews

"Rafael Bernal's The Mongolian Conspiracy, written in 1969, is a masterful work of hilarity and noir. Compelling and full of wit, this is a detective story with a cast of memorable characters, delicious Mexican profanities and sharp, well-placed dialogue." — Juan Vidal, NPR

"This is the first novel by Bernal, who died in 1972 at 57, to be translated into English... at once complex, chilling and slapstick, is a doozy." — John Williams, New York Times

"The pervading sense of personal and social oblivion becomes increasingly bracing. It’s like Apocalypse Now with mosquitos, and surprisingly it works." — Publishers Weekly

"In 1947, Bernal published one of Mexico’s pathbreaking sci-fi novels: His Name Was Death. Set among the Lacandón indigenous people in the country’s southern rainforests, it depicts a universe ruled by hyper-intelligent mosquitoes who farm the human race as a food source...Bernal’s work can be pulpy, and reactionary, but it’s also clever in the way it encourages critical reading. He possessed a rare ability to assume a perspective and examine it at the same time—and he expected his readers to do the same." — Max Pearl, The Baffler

"The apparent simplicity of His Name Was Death belies the subtlety of its themes. Behind the horror of the mosquito “invasion” are the nested invasions of the apparently “civilized” humans in the book." — Lucas Iberico Lozada, The Nation