The Wind Traveler

One of the major novelists of his generation.

— Diario de Tarragona

Each book by the Peruvian writer Alonso Cueto is a journey into our own selves…To read Cueto is to walk those paths of one’s soul that only writers can shine a light on…The Wind Traveler [is a] prodigious novel.

— Santiago Gil, El Cultural de Canarias

Alonso Cueto records how literature contributes to the definition of our society. The Wind Traveler is simply extraordinary.

— Mariela Sagel, La Estrella de Panama

The Wind Traveler is a must-read for its multitude of nuanced ideas, but above all for the changing atmospheres, a spitting image of real life. A novel that will impact any reader.

— Christian Roinat, Nouveaux Espaces Latinos

Staggering...Cueto imbues every page and character with the brutal consequences of war in his compulsively readable story of a man’s reckoning with a history of violence. Wynne and Mendez’s splendid translation brings readers an essential work of Peruvian literature.

— Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

The Wind Traveler is a lyrical novel about loss and atonement...Throughout, details capture the essences of places and people. Cueto’s scenes and descriptions are tactile and immediate, conveying subtext and deeper meaning. Metaphors set a mood that supports the story’s overarching themes of trauma, guilt, and the idea that we are forever bound to people we harm and who harm us, even if that harm is unintended...The Wind Traveler is a powerful, multi-layered novel that meditates on life and death, pain and suffering.

— Foreword Reviews

[The Wind Traveler] feels more like two novels. The larger part is rote exercise and bald suspense. Within this, there is a more nuanced, and thus more mesmerizing, consideration of purpose and atonement.

— New York Times

Cueto’s magnificent storytelling ably portrays the brutality of Peru’s armed conflict and, more importantly, the many personal scars it left behind...The Wind Traveler is a fast-paced, psychologically charged novel that quickly grabs the reader’s attention. Translators Frank Wynne and Jessie Méndez Sayer should be commended for their excellent rendition of this gripping narrative. The Wind Traveler will allow English-speaking audiences to learn about Peru’s recent painful past, as well as discover the many talents of one of its best storytellers.

— World Literature Today

[An] accomplished novel by Alonso Cueto, expertly translated by Frank Wynne and Jessie Mendez Sayer.

— Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas