RaveNew York Journal of BooksReading the boldly inventive and fast paced novel Aphasia , is like road tripping through a warm country with your smartest friend; it might be one of the best trips you are likely to take this year ... The distinctive voice of Cardenas, (a native of Ecuador) has hints of Roberto Bolaño with his vivid reportage, but also the sexy worldliness of a Geoff Dyer. Aphasia shares this quality of being formally experimental, (there is no marked dialogue though many strands of dialogue intertwine) while also holding the reader in emotional suspense ... Playful in many ways, Cardena’s narrator shifts and travels ... The skillful way Cardenas slides from vivid image-to-image, and event to event, as if it were the most natural thing in the world creates a kind of relentless momentum that carries the reader from start to finish without pausing. There is rarely a boring scene here. We feel the density, urgency, and the complexity of lived life.
