Inspired by a real-life event of undeclared cash carried from Venezuela to Argentina in 2007, Briefcases from Caracas is an extraordinarily literary blend of the classic noir novel and international political thriller, the first of this prolific author’s novels to appear in English. Mendez Guédez’s Caracas--gritty and sublime--is the sinking ship at the center of this twenty-first century transnational Stevensonian Caribbean tale of shifting conflicts, loyalties, and surprising treasures.
By Juan Carlos Mendez Guedez, translated by Barbara Riess and Suzanne Corley.
About the Author:
Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez (Barquisimeto, Venezuela, 1967) is one of the leading voices in contemporary Venezuelan literature. His work is well recognized in Venezuela (a finalist for the XII Rómulo Gallegos International Prize in 2001, and winner of the 2013 Booksellers’ Prize) as well as in Spain, where he has lived since 1996 (a finalist for the V Premio Unicaja de Novela in 2004, and winner of the 2000 Premio Ateneo de La Laguna, the 2009 Barbastro International Prize, and 2024 Premio Tiflos). He is prolific and experimental, and his work—novels (El libro de Esther, Chulapos mambo, among others), short fiction (Ideogramas to name one of nine titles), and young adult fiction (El abuelo de Zulaimar and Nueve mil kilómetros y tu abrazo)—frequently challenges the limits of the narrative genre (in particular, the 2015 fictitious travelogue Y recuerda que te espero, and his collection La diosa de agua. Cuentos y mitos del Amazonas).
The subject of study at universities in Belgium, Bulgaria, Col-ombia, Spain, the United States, France, Italy, and Venezuela, his work has been translated into French, Galician and English. His short fiction appears in English in Latin American Literature Today and Crude Words: Contemporary Writing from Venezuela (Ragpicker Press, 2016). The French weekly Télérama called the translation of Briefcases from Caracas, Les valises (Ediciones Métaillé), one of the best crime thrillers to come out in France in 2018, and his second detective novel La ola detenida [The Captured Tide] was a finalist in the 2022 Gran Prix de Littérature Policière. Originally published in Spain in 2014 (Siruela), Los maletines [Briefcases from Caracas] was finally published in Venezuela in 2023 (Ediciones Curiara) and is his first novel to appear in English.Doctor in Hispanic Literature from the University of Salamanca, Méndez Guédez is central to the promotion of Hispanic Literature at the Instituto Cervantes in Madrid, organizing among other events, the Festival Benengeli, a simultaneous global celebration of literature in Spanish in multiple sites around the world for a week every June. His most recent novels include Roman de la isla Bararida and La montaña de los siete tambores.
About the Translators:
Suzanne Corley was an instructor of Romance Languages at Tulane University. Upon completion of her Bachelor’s Degree at Presbyterian College, she was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship. She studied at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University and then earned her Master’s in Latin American Studies at Tulane. She wrote fiction in different genres, including a novella, Rain Like a River, a memoir, Say My Name Your Way: Reflections on a Multilingual Life, and poetry, which appeared in Southern Poetry Anthology. In her chosen hometown of New Orleans, Suzanne was a revered DJ for both Tudo Bem (the Brazilian show) and The World Journey on WWOZ and translated freelance, including the seminal first draft of Briefcases from Caracas.
Barbara Riess is an award-winning translator and Professor of Spanish and Translation at Allegheny College. An Address in Havana / Domicilio habanero, short fiction from Cuban author María Elena Llana, won the International Latino Book Award for Best Translation of Fiction in 2016. Along with scholarly publications in Latin American Literary Review, and Cuban Studies/Estudios cubanos, her other translations include two Chicano novels by Margarita Cota-Cárdenas, Puppet and Sanctuaries of the Heart (with Trino Sandoval), and selections in Spain: A Traveler’s Literary Companion, Cuba On the Edge, Cuba Counterpoints, and Latin Amer-ican Literature Today.