Good Offices

Description

When Father Almida is summoned to an audience with the parish's principal benefactor, a stand-in is found in Father Matamoros, a drunkard with an angel's voice whose sung mass is mesmerizing to all. But Matamoros hides a darker side, and when the church's residents throw a feast for him he encourages them to lose all their inhibitions and give free reign to their most Bacchanalian desires. A satire on the iniquities of the Catholic church in Colombia, Good Offices is at once comic, surreal and startling, a novel that will linger long in the mind.

Evelio Rosero studied Social Communication in the Externado University of Colombia. In 2006 he was awarded the Tusquets National Prize for Literature in Colombia for his novel The Armies, which was also the winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.

'Moving from offbeat humour to soaring spiritual ecstasy, it has both pathos and punch' Maya Jaggi, Guardian. * Guardian * 'A novella about hope and the possibility of realising it ... written with brio, and with vivid illuminating touches ... It reads beautifully' Allan Massie, Scotsman. * Scotsman * 'The Catholic Church takes a real kicking in this slim yet invective-packed satire ... lays bare the hypocrisy of the Church in richly descriptive sentences' Sunday Business Post. * Sunday Business Post * 'A fable of vice and desire as comic as it is disturbing' Lucy Scholes, Sunday Times. * Sunday Times * 'An entertaining and engaging read, with arresting images that linger in the mind long after the book has been returned to the shelf' Wayne Gooderham, Time Out. * Time Out * 'a ripe and atmospheric satire on ecclesiastical hypocrisy' Sunday Telegraph. * Sunday Telegraph *