"The evocative imagery and ideas revealed in "The Witness" are not easily forgotten."--"Washington Times"

"Haunting and beautifully written."--"Independent on Sunday"

In sixteenth-century Spain, a cabin boy sets sail on a ship bound for the New World. An inland expedition ends in disaster when the group is attacked by Indians.

"The Witness" explores the relationship between existence and description, foreignness and cultural identity.

Juan Jose Saer was born in Argentina in 1937 and is considered one of Argentina's leading writers of the post-Borges generation. He died in 2005.

"La Grande"--Saer's final novel, which is also a fantastic entry-point to his world--centers around two related stories: that of Gutierrez, his sudden departure from Argentina thirty years before, and his equally mysterious return; and that of "precisionism," a literary movement founded by a rather dangerous fraud.