On March 1, we featured an exclusive preview of the award-winning graphic novelist Álvaro Ortiz’s Ashes.
Originally published a decade ago, the story features a handful of characters who are loosely connected, but their fates converge when a trio set out on a road trip to fulfill the last will and testament of a recently-passed friend. While I just provided a very mundane description, the book is anything but. There are secrets, an insistent monkey, a pair of deadly travelers who look like ZZ top, and—honestly … I’ve said too much. You just have to read it yourself. Also, prepare to never be able to guess what is happening next.
Why would we share a preview of a story published a decade ago? Well, Top Shelf Productions just translated Ashes into English! Originally published in Spain, Ortiz’s work has only been only accessible to the hundreds of millions of Spanish readers. Now, thanks to the work of Eva Ibarzaba (the translator), Ortiz’s is now available to more of us! Ashes is the first of his works to be translated into English.
