Historia Secreta de Costaguana

London, 1903. Joseph Conrad is struggling with his new novel (#39;I am placing it in South America in a Republic I call Costaguana#39;). Progress is slow and the great writer needs help from a native of the Caribbean coast of South America. Jos#233; Altamirano, Colombian at birth, just arrived in London answers the great writer#39;s advertisement and tells him his life story. Jos#233; has been witness to the most horrible things that a person or a country could suffer, and drags with him not just a guilty conscience but a story that has almost destroyed him.br/br/br/br/br/br/But when iNostromo/i is published the following year Jos#233; is outraged by what he reads: #39;You#39;ve eliminated me from my own life. You, Joseph Conrad, have robbed me.#39; I waved the iWeekly/i in the air again, and then threw it down on his desk. #39;Here,#39; I whispered, my back to the thief, #39;I do not exist.#39;br/br/br/br/br/br/iThe Secret History of Costaguana/i, the second novel by Juan Gabriel V#225;squez to be published in English, is Jos#233; Altamirano#39;s riposte to Joseph Conrad. It is a big novel, tragic and despairing, comic and insightful by turns, told by a bumptious narrator with a score to settle. It is Latin America#39;s post#45;modern answer to Europe#39;s modernist vision. It is a superb, joyful, thoughtful and rumbustious novel that will establish Juan Gabriel V#225;squez#39;s reputation as one of the leading novelists of his generation.