Daniel Alarcón

Biography

Daniel Alarcón is associate editor of Etiqueta Negra, a monthly magazine published in his native Lima, Peru. His short story collection, War by Candlelight (Harper-Collins), was a finalist for the 2006 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. His first novel, Lost City Radio (HarperCollins, 2007), was named a Best Book of the Year by the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor, and Chicago Tribune. He lives in Oakland, California.

See Work

FICTION / Winter 2012

The Composer

By Daniel Alarcón

On the June night of Dolphy’s passing, the composer is in New York, holding forth about the size of space. An audience has gathered to hear him speak. Perhaps they recognize him, but more likely they only think they do. He is wide as a...

CRITICISM

Wither the Hipster … ?

By Daniel Alarcón

By now making fun of hipsters is far too easy for anyone to bother, so the Canadian magazine Adbusters has taken things a step further. The current issue’s cover story, “Hipsters: The Dead End of Western Civilization,” (over-)written by one...

ESSAYS / Summer 2008

You Do Not Represent the Government of the United States

By Daniel Alarcón

We were late arriving in Damascus, though I can’t remember exactly why. There was traffic coming out of Aleppo, or perhaps we got lost in Damascus, or perhaps the stop for strong, bitter coffee along the way—our driver’s eyes kept...

Winter 2008

American Labasha

By Daniel Alarcón
CRITICISM

Pro-Torture Film Coming Soon to a Theater Near You

By Daniel Alarcón
Fall 2007

The Very Edge of the World

By Daniel Alarcón
Winter 2007

A Circus at the Center of the World

By Daniel Alarcón
FICTION / Summer 2004

Lima, Peru, July 28, 1979

By Daniel Alarcón

This story has three characters. Three important ones, that is; three worth mentioning. Others may pop in here and there, but they don’t mean anything. There is the police officer, pointing his gun at me. Manolo Carrión, or so he told me...