In a small town the full terror emerges of a dominant power structure left unchallenged. One of many kept indoors during their short lives, an unknown narrator describes with increasing circles the boundaries of his living space and the realities of his uncertain condition. Attention brings with it the most severe of consequences and when his turn comes for terrifying selection, the only option is to rebel.

In a period of escalating anti-semitism, amid our current refugee crises, and as light is turned on our long history of racial oppression and gender violence, Stranger to the Moon is the beguiling and effective literary filter for our times. Rosero’s novel was published in 1986 and is translated into English for the first time.

More chilling than the dystopia of Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go and with elements of the surreal to rival Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Rosero’s hypnotic short tale builds in anxiety to deliver a crippling emotional punch.