Among Strange Victims

Slackers meets The Savage Detectives in this polyphonic ode to the pleasures of not measuring up.

Rodrigo likes his vacant lot, its resident chicken, and being left alone. But when passivity finds him accidentally married to Cecilia, he trades Mexico City for the sun-bleached desolation of his hometown and domestic life with Cecilia for the debauched company of a poet, a philosopher, and Micaela, whose allure includes the promise of time travel. Earthy, playful, and sly, Among Strange Victims is a psychedelic ode to the pleasures of not measuring up.

Publication date: June 7, 2017 

Format: Trade Paper

Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.25 

Page count: 320 pages 

ISBN: 9781566894302

Translated from the Spanish

Thanks to a 2013 ADA Access Improvement Grant administered by VSA Minnesota for the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, this title is also formatted for screen readers which make text accessible to the blind and visually impaired. To purchase this title for use with a screen reader please email us at info@coffeehousepress.org.

Daniel Saldaña París (born Mexico City, 1984) is an essayist, poet, and novelist whose work has been translated into English, French, and Swedish and anthologized, most recently in Mexico20: New Voices, Old Traditions, published in the United Kingdom by Pushkin Press. Among Strange Victims is his first novel to appear in the United States. He lives in Montreal, Quebec.

Christina MacSweeney was awarded the 2016 Valle Inclán Translation Prize for her translations of Valeria Luiselli’s The Story of My Teeth, and her translations of Daniel Saldaña París’s novel Among Strange Victims was a finalist in the 2017 Best Translated Book Award. In 2017 she published a translation of Elvira Navarro’s A Working Woman, followed in 2018 by Empty Set (Verónica Gerber Bicecci), andTomb Song andThe House of the Pain of Others (Julián Herbert), all of which have received critical acclaim. Her work has also been included in various anthologies of Latina American Literature. Christina also collaborated with Verónica Gerber Bicecci on the bilingual book Palabras migrantes / Migrant Words. Her translations of Bring Me the Head of Quentin Tarantino (Julián Herbert)On Lighthouses, a book-length essay by Jazmina Barrera, and Elvira Navarro’s short story collection Rabbit Island are forthcoming in 2020.

“Great fun are the jabs at academia, Mexico City and the dusty town where the action, or inaction, moves after Rodrigo meets Marcelo, a Spanish cretin with a Ph.D. in aesthetics. These flameless flâneurs humph and hump, personifying urban malaise.”

—The New York Times Sunday Book Review

“For all Saldaña París’ sharp wit, Among Strange Victims is about waking up to the world’s brighter possibilities.”

—NPR

“Brief, brilliantly written, and kissed by a sense of the absurd.”

—Fresh Air

“It’s a novel that sneaks up on you in the best possible way.”

—Vol. 1 Brooklyn

“A natural successor in the Latin American oeuvre. Saldaña París eases forward from the Crack and McOndo movements, yet still evokes the hues of Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch.”

—Full Stop

“The novel teases and revises questions about how to live a meaningful life with agency by turning them into a thought experiment that Saldana París handles with formal invention and a Millennial twist.”

—Words Without Borders

“Although its stylized narrative can be an acquired taste, Among Strange Victims is deceptively affecting.”

—The Star Tribune

“París has mastered the art of spinning an outlandish, entertaining tale.”

—Booklist

"Cocky, indulgent, nihilistic virtuosity.”

—BOMB

“Quirky and absurd, it’s a funny, shambling look at the benefits (and drawbacks) of living life at your own lazy pace.”

—Men’s Journal

“It is impossible to read Among Strange Victims without being charmed by its wit and disarmed by its fierce and mysterious languor.”

—Alexandra Kleeman