Mascara delves into the dark terrain of identity and disguise when the lives of three people collide. A nameless man with a face no one remembers has the devastating ability to see and capture on film the brutal truths lurking inside each person he encounters. Oriana, a beautiful woman with the memory of an innocent child, is relentlessly pursued by mysterious figures from her past. Doctor Mavirelli is a brilliant and power-hungry plastic surgeon who controls society’s most prominent figures by shaping their faces. The twining of these three fates plays out in a climactic unmasking.
“Taut, eerie … a postmodern version of Jekyll and Hyde.” –The New York Times Book Review
“A marvelously inventive story of suspense … Mascara places Dorfman in the exalted cultural Parnassus inhabited by Franz Kafka and Kobe Abe.” –Los Angeles Times Book Review
“A tantalizingly ambiguous web of deceit, intrigue, and obsession, its layers of meaning gradually revealed … The reader is left in delicious puzzlement.” –Publishers Weekly
ARIEL DORFMAN is considered to be one of “the greatest Latin American novelists” (Newsweek) and one of the United States’ most important cultural and political voices. Dorfman's numerous works of fiction and nonfiction have been translated into more than thirty languages, including Death and the Maiden, which has been produced in over one hundred countries and made into a film by Roman Polanski. Dorfman has won many international awards, including the Sudamericana Award, the Laurence Olivier, and two from the Kennedy Center. He is distinguished professor at Duke University and lives in Durham, North Carolina.
Mascara delves into the dark terrain of identity and disguise when the lives of three people collide. A nameless man with a face no one remembers has the devastating ability to see and capture on film the brutal truths lurking inside each person he encounters. Oriana, a beautiful woman with the memory of an innocent child, is relentlessly pursued by mysterious figures from her past. Doctor Mavirelli is a brilliant and power-hungry plastic surgeon who controls society’s most prominent figures by shaping their faces. The twining of these three fates plays out in a climactic unmasking.
Praise
“Taut, eerie … a postmodern version of Jekyll and Hyde.” –The New York Times Book Review
“A marvelously inventive story of suspense … Mascara places Dorfman in the exalted cultural Parnassus inhabited by Franz Kafka and Kobe Abe.” –Los Angeles Times Book Review
“A tantalizingly ambiguous web of deceit, intrigue, and obsession, its layers of meaning gradually revealed … The reader is left in delicious puzzlement.” –Publishers Weekly
Author
ARIEL DORFMAN is considered to be one of “the greatest Latin American novelists” (Newsweek) and one of the United States’ most important cultural and political voices. Dorfman's numerous works of fiction and nonfiction have been translated into more than thirty languages, including Death and the Maiden, which has been produced in over one hundred countries and made into a film by Roman Polanski. Dorfman has won many international awards, including the Sudamericana Award, the Laurence Olivier, and two from the Kennedy Center. He is distinguished professor at Duke University and lives in Durham, North Carolina.
