Infinity Ends Soon

Intelligent, creative, and sometimes mind-blowing, this short novel packs a lot of intellectual and emotional power. Blending philosophy, physics, and some of the most important questions raised by literature, especially those imaginative musings of Borges, we are told the story of two friends who go from metalheads in a small city in Colombia thinking they are the smartest people in the town as they listen to grunge music and graffiti the town with their political messages to actually becoming some of the smartest people in the world, and perhaps a bit crazy. In fact, this cerebral story shows us that an excessive understanding of reality and infinity sometimes sounds a lot like madness. Infinity Ends Soon also follows a parallel narrative of the mathematician George Cantor, with the style and depth of Benjam­n Labatut.

Daniel Chac³n, author of Hotel Ju¡rez and The Cholo Tree

Infinity Ends Soon is the most impressively literary fiction I have read in many years. Set in a mental hospital in Colombia, the story focuses on a patient obsessed with the infinite and the controversial pursuit of infinity by mathematician Georg Cantor. The story is narrated by the patient's longtime friend, who, as in most of Jorge Luis Borges's fiction, has the same name as the piece's author. An appreciation for Borges informs much of the narrative, particularly in how Cantor's inspired vision of totality resembles the one Borges depicts in "The Aleph." Still, this story overflows with references to everyone from Cervantes to Chesterton and from Shakespeare to Nietzsche. Rescued from pedantry by its dark humor and genuine erudition, Infinity Ends Soon gives readers a welcome new look at the blurred lines between madness and genius and friendship and betrayal.

Joe Benevento, author of My Perfect Wife, Her Perfect Son and The Cracker Box Poems