When J. and Elena swap the parties and culture of the city for a simpler life on a remote Caribbean island, they expect to find an Eden to call their own. But in amongst the mango groves they discover decaying houses, diseased animals, suffocating heat and locals from another world. Faced with growing debt, how will they survive in this new environment when they themselves remain unchanged? And, as their relationship breaks down - and the horror unfolds - who can they count on if not each other?Based on a true story, In the Beginning Was the Sea is a menacing, ironic tale of human weakness, the terrifying power of nature, and what happens when our dreams meet their fateful reality.



Tomás González was born in 1950 in Medellín, Colombia. He studied Philosophy before becoming a barman in a Bogotá nightclub, whose owner published In the Beginning Was the Sea, his first novel, in 1983. González has lived in Miami and New York, where he wrote much of his work while making a living as a translator. After twenty years in the US, he returned to Colombia, where he now lives. His books have been translated into six languages. In the Beginning Was the Sea is González's first book to be published in English.



González's story of failed bohemian idealism has new power in its conscious merging of fiction and confessional... After the studious buildup of suspense and endangerment [...], González captures the ultimate smallness of the murder, the bathos of a handgun being fired, the stillness that immediately follows



The lyrical, haunting story has the feel of a fable - a young man and his beautiful wide abandon their hectic, intellectual, night-clubbing life in the city to buy a farm on an undeveloped stretch of coast - while the spare, disquieting prose suggests the start of an art-house horror film.



Taut, uncompromising study of the faultlines in all of us



A writerly coup de grâce: short and swift, with sharp imagery, menace and sensuality nestling together in its luxuriant Caribbean setting



Smoothly intriguing narrative, with its touches of sinister, Patricia Highsmith-like menace



The lauded Colombian novelist lives up to the hype...extraordinarily evocative



Extremely potent: sly, voyeuristic, ominously poetic... a clever riff on the Rousseaus (both Henri and Jean-Jacques), a cautionary tale about choosing to defy the laws of nature and man, and ultimately discovering that idealism can't replace them



Haunting



A novel that lingers



Superb



Terse but poetic... J's escape is by turns beautiful, hubristic and tragic. González writes gloriously about nature for good measure



[T]he novel leaves its mark... the arresting prose and complex characters shine.



Quietly unsettling, elegantly written



A brief, pungent, powerful and unusual tale



Tomás González has the potential to become a classic of Latin American literature... a very pure writer



Skilfully planted with narrative bombs... you can hear it ticking



Through the sparse language and the handpicked metaphors, the exotic island that J. and Elena inhabit and the realities of mainland South America come to life... lean and severe but still ultimately artistic



A fascinatingly dark character study. It is an unflinching, and pitch perfect trip into the dark heart of Colombia and hippy culture in general. It is above all a powerful debut



Gonzalez's sharp and succinct delivery, combined with his crisp and startling imagery, leaves an impression upon a reader that takes time to fade



If García Márquez is Wagner, Tomás González is Bob Dylan



A fascinating sociological experiment...Tomás González writes with descriptive beauty and subtle irony



Tomás González is among the brilliant Colombian writers emerging from the shadow of Gabriel García Márquez



Colombian novelist González tells a common story with uncommon economy



González's work has been translated into six languages, but this is his first book to appear in English, an auspicious beginning



For readers following J's fantasies and hopes [...], it is impossible not to think of Kafka's K



Devastatingly evocative... a chilling, brilliantly plotted tale



A truly captivating trouble-in-paradise novel... If this is a measure of what [González] is capable of, with luck there will be many more



The finca's surroundings, richly and sensuously rendered by González and Spanish-language translator Frank Wynne, burst with images of fecundity... For the English-speaking world, this novel is merely a taste of what is to come



Gonzalez poetically and comically captures the inevitable destruction of those who live in a world of fantasy and hubris, depicting beauty and despair by turns



Touching... González has established himself as one of Colombia's leading writers