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The characters in Songs for the Flames are men and women touched by violence - sometimes directly, sometimes only in passing - but whose lives are changed forever, consumed by fire and by unexpected encounters and unyielding forces. A photographer becomes obsessed with the traumatic past that an elegant woman, a fellow guest staying at a countryside ranch, would rather leave behind. A military reunion forces a soldier to confront a troubling history, both personal and on a larger scale. And in a tour-de-force piece, the search for a book leads a writer to the fascinating story of why a woman is buried next to a graveyard, rather than in it - and the remarkable account of her journey from France to Colombia as a child orphan.Juan Gabriel Vsquez returns to stories with these nine morally complex tales, fresh proof of his narrative versatility and his profound understanding of the lives of others.