A dazzling debut about the demented final project of a brilliant mathematician, recalling the best of Bolano, Borges, and Calvino, Colonel Lagrimas is an allegory of our hyper-informed age and of the clash between European and Latin American history. Loosely based on the fascinating life story of the eccentric mathematician Alexander Grothendieck, Colonel Lagrimas is a world-spanning tour de force of history, politics, literature, mathematics, and philosophy that wears its learning lightly, forming an appealingly human story of the forces that created the modern world.

Translated by: Megan McDowell