An Open Secret

Drawing on the legacy of Argentina's Dirty War, Carlos Gamerro's An Open Secret is a compelling postmodern thriller confronting guilt, complicity and the treachery of language itself.

Dario Ezcurra is one of the thousands of Argentinians unlucky enough to be 'disappeared' by the military government-murdered by the local chief of police with the complicity of his friends and neighbours. Twenty years later, Fefe, a child at the time of the murder, returns to the town where Dario met his fate and attempts to discover how the community let such a crime happen. Lies, excuses and evasion ensue – desperate attempts to deny the guilty secret of which the whole community, even Fefe himself, is afraid.

Translated from the Spanish by Ian Barnett, Carlos Gamerro's An Open Secret is published by Pushkin Press.

'Carlos Gamerro's An Open Secret … has the makings of a classic' – The Economist

'An Open Secret is paced like a taut thriller that … ultimately, rewards the reader … Gamerro creates a vivid sense of how gossip can poison a small town' – The Independent

'An Open Secret digs away at the shallow graves of recent decades to find the pettiness, narrow-minds, and rivalries that motivated it'– Ben Bollig, The Guardian

Carlos Gamerro (b. 1962) was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has published the novels Las Islas, El sueno del senor juez, El secreto y las voces, La aventura de los bustos de Eva and the book of short stories El libro de los afectos raros as well as numerous works of literary criticism. He also wrote the film script for the movie Tres de corazones (2007).