The Tattooed Soldier
By Hector Tobar
1998
First Published
3.95
Average Rating
320
Number of Pages
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Héctor Tobar 's debut novel is a tragic tale of destiny and consequence set in downtown Los Angeles on the eve of the 1992 riots. Antonio Bernal is a Guatemalan refugee haunted by memories of his wife and child murdered at the hands of a man marked with a yellow tattoo. Not far from Antonio's apartment, Guillermo Longoria extends his arm and reveals a tattoo—yellow pelt, black spots, red mouth. It is the mark of the death squad, the Jaguar Battalion of the Guatemalan army. A chance encounter ignites a psychological showdown between these two men who discover that the war in Central America has followed them to the quemazones, the "great burning" of the Los Angeles riots.
Avg Rating
3.95
Number of Ratings
1,344
5 STARS
31%
4 STARS
40%
3 STARS
22%
2 STARS
6%
1 STARS
1%
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Author
Hector Tobar
Author · 7 books
Héctor Tobar, now a weekly columnist for the Los Angeles Times, is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and a novelist. He is the author of Translation Nation and The Tattooed Soldier. The son of Guatemalan immigrants, he is a native of the city of Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife and three children.
