Armed with fake papers, a handful of gold nuggets, and a snazzy custom-made suit, an unemployed schoolteacher with a singular passion for detective fiction sets out from small-town Bolivia on a desperate quest for an American visa, his best hope for escaping his painful past and reuniting with his grown son in Miami. Mario Alvarez’s dream of emigration takes a tragicomic twist on the rough streets of La Paz, Bolivia’s seat of government. Alvarez embarks on a series of Kafkaesque adventures, crossing paths with a colorful cast of hustlers, social outcasts, and crooked politicians—and initiating a romance with a straight-shooting prostitute named Blanca. Spurred on by his detective fantasies and his own tribulations, he hatches a plan to rob a wealthy gold dealer, a decision that draws him into a web of high-society corruption but also brings him closer than ever to obtaining his ticket to paradise. A best-seller in its own country, this novel about a man desperate to get into America is one of the few Bolivian novels to be translated into English, and especially with the present furor about immigration, it is sure to spark interest. Mario Alvarez, an unemployed English teacher, has come to La Paz, Bolivia, to get an American visa so he can visit his son in Miami. But he cannot get past the embassy bureaucracy. Living in the rough streets, he gets to know tramps, crooked politicians, and prostitutes, including Blanca, who loves him. He needs money to bribe corrupt officials for papers, so he draws on his experience with American crime fiction--Chandler, Hammett, and more--to steal the money any way he can, even if he has to kill to get it. De Recacoechea celebrates the hybrid in ethnicity and culture, and he does it without reverence or even respect, blending absurdity with harsh realism to tell a surprising story of roots and finding home. Hazel Rochman Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved " American Visa , which won Bolivia’s National Book Prize in 1994 and was made into a movie in 2005, is both dark and quirky, a revealing excursion to a place over which ‘the gringos’ to the north always loom." ― New York Times Book Review "The narrator of this sweet noir claims to have read Raymond Chandler, Chester Himes, Dashiell Hammett and Manuel Vazquez Montalban ‘as if they were prophets,’ and their presiding spirits are not far from this winning tale . . . An intriguing window onto a society on the fringes of globalization." ― Publishers Weekly "A best-seller in its own country, this novel about a man desperate to get into America is one of the few Bolivian novels translated into English, and especially with the present furor about immigration, it is sure to spark interest . . . De Recacoechea celebrates the hybrid in ethnicity and culture, and he does it without reverence or even respect, blending absurdity with harsh realism to tell a surprising story of roots and finding home." ― Booklist "The story reads like a great detective novel, filled with nail-biting twists in the plot when you least expect them . . . The characters are well-developed and the settings in Bolivia are painted beautifully, allowing you to immerse yourself in the town that Mario so wants to escape." ― Ink19 " American Visa is beautifully written, atmospheric, and stylish in the manner of Chandler . . . a smart, exotic crime fiction offering." ― George Pelecanos, author of The Night Gardener JUAN DE RECACOECHEA  (1935-2017) was born in La Paz, Bolivia, and worked as a journalist in Europe for almost twenty years. After returning to his native country, he helped found Bolivia’s first state-run television network and dedicated himself to fiction writing. He's the author of the novels  American Visa, which won Bolivia’s National Book Prize and was adapted into an award-winning film, and  Andean Express.  Both American Visa and Andean Express were translated into English and published by Akashic Books. Adrian Althoff is a freelance journalist and translator. Used Book in Good Condition