The News from Paraguay

Lily Tuck · b. 1938 · United States

Why it matters

Irish-born courtesan Eliza Lynch rises beside vain Paraguayan dictator Francisco Solano López as his ambition drives the country into one of the Americas' deadliest wars. Tuck's mosaic of short, accumulating vignettes won the National Book Award.

At a glance

Fragmented, present-tense vignettes skip across decades without conventional transitions.