The international publishing house “Alphaguara” published the exciting new novel “Colonial Object” by the prominent Guatemalan writer Rodrigo Rey Rosa.
This unique Spanish-language work sits at the pinnacle of Central American dystopia literature, drawing from the worlds of modern mass prisons and controversial biotechnological developments to provide a nuanced narrative dissection of issues of justice and human rights.The novel takes place in a fictional country in Central America that bitterly reflects the distortions of contemporary reality; The spark of the story begins with the arrival of an investigator named "Silencio" from the Dutch city of The Hague to investigate the violations taking place inside a high-security smart prison known as "Infernon" (the Greatest Hell).Within the prison walls lies Esteban, a young film student who was wrongly arrested while filming a documentary about street gangs, the Maras. Fates intersect when a private investigator begins literally sneaking through the sewers of the prison to carry out an elaborate escape plan commissioned by Esteban's family. In parallel, a terrifying secret unfolds: an eccentric prison doctor has designed a neural network to biologically connect the minds of prisoners and transform them into a “single, unified intellectual organism” under the pretenses of reforming them and ridding them of crime.The novel cleverly combines near science fiction with harsh political realism; Author Rodrigo Rey Rosa has stated in media interviews that the idea of the smart prison was partly inspired by the giant mass prisons in El Salvador (such as the Sicut prison) and the emerging totalitarian regimes in the region. Rey Rosa explains that the biotechnology of the interconnected collective mind closely resembles humanity's current integration with artificial intelligence applications, questioning the moral limits of social control.The dialectic of guilt and innocence in societies crushed by violent environments.
The novel received wide critical acclaim immediately after its release. The late novelist Roberto Bolaño described her in his famous historical testimony as “a brilliant teacher, and reading him is an invitation to pure pleasure and to get carried away with fantasy and dark stories.” International critical platforms such as "Asymptote Magazine" also described it as a genius combination that combines the style of the spy novels of "John le Carré" and the nightmarish absurdity of "Franz Kafka."The novel is characterized, throughout its pages, by concise, sharp language and black sarcasm that leaves no room for linguistic excess, making it an amazing literary document that examines the fate of human freedom and justice under the hot tropical sun.
