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|title=By Night The Mountain Burns

|author=Juan Tomas Avila Laurel

|isbn=978-1908276407

|pages=275

|date=November 2014

|website=http://www.fronterad.com/?q=blog/18

|video=

|summary=An outstanding novel based on the author’s memories of growing up in Equatorial Guinea.

}}

Sometimes a novel will startle because it tackles a topic totally unknown to us or tells us of lives previously un-imagined. This is the case with ''By Night the Mountain Burns''. However, what is most remarkable about Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel’s novel is how easy it is to slip into the story of a child growing up on an isolated island in Equatorial Guinea. We are not reading about mysterious 'others'. We’re reading about people like ourselves, who live in a different place which has its own constraints – namely poverty and isolation.

This is the first book by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel to have been translated into English. Jethro Soutar has done an exquisite job, in particular in rendering the rhythm of the writing. It is to be hoped that he will also translate the author’s other works.

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