About the Book
Jaime Manrique has been named the recipient of the 2019 Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement, presented by the Publishing Triangle
Like This Afternoon Forever has been named a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction
"The author's sixth novel weaves together a series of murders and the story of two gay Catholic priests who become lovers."
--New York Times Book Review, "Globetrotting," April 2019
"A seasoned and venerated writer, Manrique sets his newest novel in his native Colombia, to reckon with the 'false positive' scandal, in which the military lured unsuspecting civilians to their deaths and then presented the bodies as defeated insurgents in order to inflate their victories...Manrique's elegant prose anchors this explosive storyline to the intimacy of love...Another excellent novel by a master storyteller."
--NBC News, included in 10 New Latino Books
"Jaime Manrique's new literary novel of love and murder is based on a shocking (and little-reported in US media) crime--up to 10,000 poor and mentally disabled Colombian citizens were lured to remote areas of the country by the Colombian military, murdered, then presented to superiors as 'guerilla fighters' to inflate casualty numbers, in what's been dubbed the 'false positives' scandal. In Like This Afternoon Forever, two priests already forced to hide their forbidden love come across evidence of widespread government violence."
--CrimeReads, included in the Most Anticipated Crime Books of Summer 2019
"Jaime Manrique's dreamy Like This Afternoon Forever...tells the story of two gay priests against the backdrop of drug cartels in Colombia."
--Kirkus Reviews, included in Radha Vatsal's "Beyond Nordic Noir: On International Crime Fiction" column
"Against the backdrop of guerrilla warfare in Colombia, two young men fall in love while studying to become Catholic priests. Manrique, a recipient of Colombia's National Poetry Award as well as a Guggenheim fellowship, weaves into his story the 'false positives' scandal, in which members of the Colombian military sought to drum up the number of guerilla fighters they'd killed by murdering and misidentifying innocent civilians."
--Publishers Weekly, included in LGBTQ Feature
"Manrique's drama of a dangerous love affair in a world of blood, terror, displacement, and desperation grapples with profound and persistent conflicts."
--Booklist
For the last fifty years, the Colombian drug cartels, various insurgent groups, and the government have fought over the control of the drug traffic, in the process destroying vast stretches of the Amazon, devastating Indian communities, and killing tens of thousands of homesteaders caught in the middle of the conflict.
Inspired by these events, Jaime Manrique's sixth novel, Like This Afternoon Forever, weaves in two narratives: the shocking story of a series of murders known internationally as "the false positives," and the related story of two gay Catholic priests who become lovers when they meet in the seminary.
Lucas (the son of farmers) and Ignacio (a descendant of the Barí indigenous people) enter the seminary out of a desire to help others and to get an education. Their visceral love story undergoes stages of passion, indifference, rage, and a final commitment to stay together until the end of their lives. Working in a community largely composed of people displaced by the war, Ignacio stumbles upon the horrifying story of the false positives, which will put the lives of the two men in grave danger.
About the Author :
Jaime Manrique is a Colombian-born novelist, poet, essayist, and translator who writes both in English and Spanish, and whose work has been translated into fifteen languages. Among his publications in English are the novels Colombian Gold, Latin Moon in Manhattan, Twilight at the Equator, Our Lives Are the Rivers, and Cervantes Street; he has also published the memoir Eminent Maricones: Arenas, Lorca, Puig, and Me. His honors include Colombia's National Poetry Award, a 2007 International Latino Book Award (Best Novel, Historical Fiction), and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is a distinguished lecturer in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures at the City College of New York.
Review :
"In Like This Afternoon Forever by Jaime Manrique, two seminary students fall in love against the backdrop of the brutality of the 'false positives' murders of a drug cartel in Colombia...In this bloody conflict, Lucas and Ignacio find their relationship moving from passion to rage and finally an ultimate commitment to each other and their country."
--The Advocate, included in The Best Thriller & Fantasy Novels We Read in 2019
Included in Magnify's Pride Month issue
Included in Bay Area Reporter's Post-Pride reading list
"His new book tells the romantic and tragedy-laced story of two priests--like Manrique, also country boys who moved to the bustling capital--whose love is threatened by the violence of a country with a long history of oppression."
--Gay City News
"In his new novel, Jaime Manrique takes us into the worlds and lives of two star-crossed lovers, Ignacio and Lucas, who meet in a Catholic school in Colombia in the early 1990s and forge a life-long bond. Against the backdrop of Colombia's recent history of violence and poverty, their story combines love story and political thriller, with a touch of social criticism thrown in for good measure."
--GLBT Reviews
"Inspired by the last 50 years of the devastation done to the Amazon, Indian communities and homesteaders by drug cartels, insurgent groups and the Colombian government, Like This Afternoon Forever by Colombian-born gay writer Jaime Manrique, centers on the 'visceral love story' of Lucas and Ignacio."
--Peach, included in Pride/Stonewall reading list
"Like Jaime's other writing, the novel is fleet, clear, and so humbly and economically written as to seem effortless. In tone, it's as if a good, trusted friend or relative were telling you a story you could always follow and that is always somehow comforting, even as it draws you evermore deeply into realms of danger, suffering and tragedy."
--Medium, included in a feature piece by Dr. Lawrence Mass
"Powerful...Hypnotic...Beautiful but deeply sad."
--MuggleNet
"Jaime Manrique is a brilliant storyteller and Like This Afternoon Forever is a sensational, romantic, sexy and heartbreaking page-turner. His insightful view of Colombia and ability to develop rich memorable characters is remarkable. I loved this book!"
--This Week in Texas
"Drawing on actual events, this novel is a mixture of a gay coming-of-age story, a love story between two Catholic priests, and a chronicle of brutal corruption and violence involving drug cartels, guerrilla forces, and the military in Colombia."
--World Wide Work
"Here is a very powerful story about religion, poverty, sexuality, love and bravery that is quite an intense but necessary read. It is a quick read in which we can see ourselves as well as those we have chosen not to see...This is a wonderful gay novel but even more than that it is a wonderful novel without that specification."
--Reviews by Amos Lassen
"Manrique is our Scheherazade."
--Sandra Cisneros
"A novel about two seminary students who fall in love, Like This Afternoon Forever is a powerful story of religion, poverty, sexuality, and tenderness, as quick and intense as a fairy tale, yet as real and brutal as contemporary Latin America. Jaime Manrique has written a beautiful, moving narrative about two good men in a dangerous world."
--Christopher Bram, author of Gods and Monsters
"A tremendous novel, beautiful, passionate, and compassionate. In it we are able to recognize ourselves and, perhaps more importantly, come face to face with the other, unknown to us only because we choose not to see."
--El Tiempo (Colombia)
"Like This Afternoon Forever is magnificent. On one level it is a simple and moving story of love between two poor young Colombian men, Lucas and Ignacio. Jaime Manrique tells their story in a voice that magically balances lyrical intimacy with reportorial distance; he has given us a novel that at once conveys the immediacy of art and the weight of headlines. A very special book."
--Rivka Galchen, author of Little Labors
"Manrique is a sophisticated rarity in contemporary letters."
--El País (Colombia)
"Manrique is a brilliant, agile, and supremely natural storyteller. He builds a world so deeply imagined that it seems to come from air, and so real it feels pulled directly from memory. Like This Afternoon Forever is both a great gay novel and a great novel, simply. It provides an intimate view of Colombia we would not have access to otherwise. This suspenseful and deeply moving story is also romantic, disturbing, sad, wise, funny, sexy, and full of truths. I will remember this book and these characters as if I knew them personally."
--Ira Sachs, award-winning filmmaker of Little Men
"Manrique fashions a tale of love, demystifying themes such as the amorous passion between two men, while tracing their pastoral efforts in areas of open conflict and poverty. The more you read, the more you're drawn into their story."
--La Opinión (Colombia)
"Jaime Manrique is a brilliant writer--compassionate, lyrical, and emotionally precise--and Like This Afternoon Forever is dazzling and heartbreaking, a page-turning masterpiece that kept me up for hours. I loved this book."
--Molly Antopol, author of The UnAmericans
