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FREEDOM IS A FEAST

Alejandro Puyana

A multigenerational, Latin American saga of love and revolution in which a rebel who commits a youthful betrayal receives a late-life chance at redemption and a new life: "a tour de force" from "the new master" (Luis Alberto Urrea, New York Times bestselling author of Good Night, Irene).
In 1964, Stanislavo, a zealous young man devoted to his ideals, turns his back on his privilege to join the leftist movement in the jungles of Venezuela. There, as he trains, he meets Emiliana, a nurse and fellow revolutionary. Though their intense connection seems to be love at first sight, their romance is upended by a decision with consequences that will echo down through the generations.

Almost forty years later, in a poor barrio of Caracas, María, a single mother, ekes out a precarious existence as a housekeeper, pouring her love into Eloy, her young son. Her devotion will not be enough, however, to keep them from disaster. On the eve of the attempted coup against President Chávez, Eloy is wounded by a stray bullet, fracturing her world. Amid the chaos at the hospital, María encounters Stanislavo, now a newspaper editor. Even as the country itself is convulsed by waves of unrest, this twist of fate forces a belated reckoning for Stanislavo, who may yet earn a chance to atone for old missteps before it's too late.

With its epic scope, gripping narrative, and unflinching intimacy, Freedom Is a Feast announces a major new talent. Alejandro Puyana has delivered a wise and moving debut about sticking to one's beliefs at the expense of pain and chaos, about the way others can suffer for our misdeeds even when we have the best of intentions, and about the possibility for redemption when love persists across time.

Alejandro Puyana is just completing his MFA in Fiction at the Michener Center for Writers, at the University of Texas, where he is in his final year as a Fellow. While there he has studied with Amy Hempel, Elizabeth McCracken and Laura van den Berg, as well as Bret Anthony Johnston. His fiction has appeared in multiple publicationshis story "The Hands of Dirty Children" won the inaugural Halifax Ranch Prize from American Short Fiction, chosen by ZZ Packer, was selected by Curtis Sittenfeld for Best American Short Stories 2020, and was recently reprinted by Electric Lit. Other stories have appeared in New England Review, Tin House, and Idaho Review.
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Published 2024-08-20 by Little, Brown

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Freedom is a Feast is a searing and soaring novel, a book that lays bare the costs of tyranny and the heart-rending sacrifices of those who dare to fight against it. By rendering the lives of characters from his native Venezuela with such clear-eyed compassion, Alejandro Puyana has given readers an extraordinary window into the soul of a nation. In many ways, Freedom is a Feast is the perfect novel for this political momenta story of anger and loss, of courage and hope and, with luck, of change.

Alejandro Puyana Debut Author Series Freedom is a Feast Read more...

Winner of the Westport Prize for Literature Westport Literary Prize Finalist

Freedom Is a Feast is a rare and explosive novel about the lengths to which the human heart will go for what is just and what is right. Alejandro Puyana announces himself as a major new talent with this unflinching debut of love, revolution, and family

Texas Standard for Sept. 5, 2024: Author Alejandro Puyana on family, Venezuela and 'Freedom is a Feast' Read more...

Spanning some fifty years and populated with unforgettable characters, Freedom Is a Feast is a debut of tremendous scope and gravity. Alejandro Puyana writes brilliantly about the ceaseless human quest to make a better world.

Fearlessly Ambitious, dizzyingly complex, gorgeously written, and chock full of magic, sin, loss, and enduring love.

Alejandro Puyana Explores the Humanity and Hardship of Venezuela With His Debut Novel Read more...

Epic doesn't begin to describe this extraordinary novel. Freedom Is a Feast is as vivid and wondrous as your best dream, as unsettling and unforgettable as your worst. They say you can't fit the entire world into a novel, but Puyana comes close. What a gift he has given readers, what a profound, shattering, inspiring gift.

Freedom Is a Feast is a searing and soaring novel, a book that lays bare the costs of tyranny and the heart-rending sacrifices of those who dare to fight against it. By rendering the lives of characters from his native Venezuela with such clear-eyed compassion, Alejandro Puyana has given readers an extraordinary window into the soul of a nation. Freedom Is a Feast is the perfect novel for this political momenta story of anger and loss, of courage and hope, and, with luck, of change.

Freedom Is a Feast is a memorable debut, and Puyana is already a master storyteller.

[A] beauty to behold . . . Freedom Is a Feast . . . is a novel bursting with love for Venezuela, for its people and landscape and history. It's got a breakneck pace that contains the multitudes of entire lives in its exploration of people caught in a revolutionary struggle and still just trying to get by.

A tour de force. Applause for the new master.

Book Deals: Week of March 13, 2023 Puyana Finds 'Freedom' at Little, Brown Ben George at Little, Brown bought world English rights to Alejandro Puyana's Freedom Is a Feast. George said the debut novel, sold by Emily Forland at Brandt & Hochman, is a "multigenerational Latin American saga of love and revolution, set in Venezuela from 1964 to 2013." It follows a revolutionary who "abandons his family for the cause in his youth and is offered a late-life chance at redemption." George compared the novel, which is scheduled for summer 2024, to Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits and Mario Vargas Llosa's The Feast of the Goat. Puyana, who grew up in Venezuela, has an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin.

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Puyana . . . squeezes adventure, even dark comedy, from misery and horror . . . It's a Latin American tradition, a coping mechanism turned vocation for authors from Roberto Bolaño to Mariana Enríquez. Read more...

Propulsive, pulse-quickening . . . Cinematic settings, evolving characters, and an explosive plot support a story of love and politics.

Puyana debuts with a gripping story of a family shaped by Venezuela's tumultuous history during the Cold War and early 21st century . . . wrenching . . . Puyana's beautifully crafted narrative explores the complexity of his characters' choices and loyalties. [Freedom Is a Feast is] impossible to put down. Read more...

Heart-stopping, heartbreaking, expansive, riveting: Alejandro Puyana's Freedom Is a Feast is an astonishing first novel by a writer capable of showing the sweep of history and the souls of his characters at the same time.