Books in the Latin American Literature Series series

Ricardo is making himself sick over his obsession with the girl next door and Elias is hopelessly infatuated with a local prostitute. One lives in the bustle of Mexico City, the other in the quiet of a tiny Baja California town. They both find themselves in a world dominated by desire where "love begins to wither from the moment it takes root".

A modern epic on a grand scale, Avalovara is a rich and lyrical novel centered around Abel's courtship of three women. He pursues the sophisticated and inaccessible Roos across Europe; falls in love with Cecilia, a carnal, compassionate hermaphrodite; and achieves a tender, erotic alliance with a woman known only by an ideogram. Avalovara is an extraordinary novel, both in its depiction of modern life and in its rigorous, puzzlelike structure visually represented by a spiral and a five-word palindrome.