Daniel Alarcon: War by Candlelight: Stories

— LEWIS ROBINSON, author of Officer Friendly and Other Stories

“ War by Candlelight is frighteningly unpretentious and direct, as it mines a territory all its own. These stories bare luminous and mundane messages of new worlds with equal aplomb. An inspiring debut.”

— ERNESTO QUIÑONEZ, author of Chango’s Fire and Bodega Dreams

“In War by Candlelight , each story blends with the next so that finally they all seem like plays within one greater play about the natural limits, both personal and historical, of unfair warfare. These stories are knowledgeable and mock sentimentality when they show us how so many occasions in life are merely small rehearsals for death.”

— JOE LOYA, author of The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell

“ War by Candlelight is beautiful and terrifying: a tour through lands, distant and near, where the difference between violence and intimacy blurs. Daniel Alarcón’s stories are gritty and compassionate, subtle and unflinching. They carry us straight to the front lines of the struggle for physical and psychic survival, where absurdity and tragedy find equal footing.”

— ADAM MANSBACH, author of Angry Black White Boy

“Alarcón’s voice is fierce and assured, and his debut collection engages. Every once in a while a young voice emerges with the potential to define a new generation. Daniel Alarcón fits the profile.”

— Publishers Weekly

“The title refers to personal battles — the fight to find one’s identity in another country, the fight to be recognized by a lover’s family, the fight to live after a soul mate’s death. What results are stories that can take on wonderful new meanings in the imagination of any reader.”

— New York Post

“There is a naked honesty in his debut collection, War by Candlelight , as characters must decide — sometimes at a very early age — who they are…. Alarcón writes with strength and passion. He doesn’t try to reconcile two worlds, but instead holds a looking glass up to each.”

— Charlotte Observer

“In Peruvian American writer Daniel Alarcón’s debut story collection, War by Candlelight , the sights and sounds and tensions of the Peruvian capital come brilliantly alive…. There’s no denying this is a notable debut by a young author whose sharp, observational eye has some gritty knowledge of human hope and foible behind it.”

— Seattle Times

“A collection marked by buried explosiveness…lost love, life-changing decisions, and displacement — Alarcón sometimes has the voice of an old soul. But the author is equally interested in dilemmas faced by his own age group…he is tackling subjects well-beyond his years.”

— Time Out (New York)

“Alarcón shows signs that he’s on the verge of truly accomplished fiction. Alarcón is an enticing escort into a bewildering world where poverty’s strong, democracy’s weak, and politics is inescapable. The [collection’s] appeal lies in a deft use of metaphor and in underscoring the human aspects of politics, beyond ideology.”

— New York Newsday

“Alarcón writes in a flat, almost affectless way, with an easy touch that makes his hard truths and tragic scenes more palatable: his stories can hurt your heart but his artistry is exhilarating…[and] sometimes his spare prose can make you cry.”

— San Francisco magazine

“It is clear that Daniel Alarcón’s stories transcend any label. He moves beyond any designation. The stories are by turns gritty and elegant, startling and stunning. Alarcón may have had an extraordinarily auspicious beginning in his publishing career, but it was by no means a fluke. War by Candlelight attests to this writer’s talents to dangle shadowy visions before us while swooping down to light the way to the next story.”

— San Antonio Express-News

“[Alarcón] is quickly becoming a writer to watch…. The stories are told with unflinching honesty in the face of extraordinary and everyday cruelty.”

— Birmingham News

“The writing is fluid, the vision unwavering. He soars easily from the slightest detail to an abstract notion and just as smoothly back into the heart of the scene. Most inspiring is the promise that he will continue to shower us with frenzied, wonderful stories in the years to come.”

— Pop Matters

“Daniel Alarcón may just be one of the best storytellers writing fiction today. His keen eye and amazing descriptions give the stories the kind of detail often lacking in debut fiction. An extraordinary collection.”

— Bookslut.com

“At an age when most short story writers are in thrall to either Carver-style earnestness or McSweenian irony, Daniel Alarcón is already on another plane. Throughout the book, Alarcón tosses off one casual, beautiful, devastating line after another, announcing the arrival of a Lahiri-like talent to keep an eye on.”

— Ruminator Review

“Stirring. Alarcón’s talent is inarguable.”

— Philadelphia Star

“The color and pathos of Alarcón’s writing reminds readers of Graham Greene, while his spare language sounds like Hemingway — high praise but deserved. Alarcón talks about war in the street and in the heart, powerful subjects served with finesse.”

— Oakland Tribune

“This confident debut collection of short fiction has much to recommend it: Alarcón is a compassionate new voice whose maturity belies his relative youth.”

— Irish Examiner

“The stories in War by Candlelight are wrenching and powerful. Alarcón’s characters never lose their humanity.”

— Baton Rouge Advocate

“Alarcón writes with tremendous humanity and vivid fluidity. His great achievement is to explore the personal consequences of a shrinking world with the same sensitivity and intensity as he considers the established horrors of history.”

— International Herald Tribune

“Alarcón is an urban wordsmith. War by Candlelight is a luminous beginning, crackling with attitude.”

— The Guardian