Juan Gabrile Vasquez is an author from Colombia. After studying in Bogota, Vasquez traveled the world, living in places like Paris, Belgium, and Barcelona. Along the way he received a doctorate in Latin American Literature. Although he participates in the precedent set by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Vasquez responds to her magical realism with a more historical perspective. He writes about his home country Colombia, but he dwells upon the finite, impact of historical events.
The Informers is his fourth novel and the second translated into English, thanks to Anne McClean. It was published in 2004, but received the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2009. The book focuses on the relationship between a young journalist and his dying father. Eager for his father's approval, Gabriel Santoro cannot imagine the depth of his father's hatred for journalism until a deathbed confession reveals his father to be a government information. In Colombian culture, this position ruins the family reputation, but Santoro finally learns the truth behind his father's attitude and finds release from his need to impress his father.
