Four years ago, Mario Vargas Llosa put him under pressure, pushing him to write eight hours a day, regularly. Since winding up his mentorship with the Peruvian author, Antonio García Ángel has not stopped writing. He has completed a third book that will be brought out in 2010 by Norma publishers.

The book consists of a novella followed by several short texts, family and science fiction stories, and is bathed in an intimate and more sombre atmosphere than the young Colombian’s previous novels. “I have to get the third book right,” he says. “In the first, readers tend to forgive beginner’s mistakes. If they thought the second one was good, they may have put it down to Vargas Llosa’s support. For the third, I’m on my own. I’ve arrived. The expectations are higher.”

García Ángel’s first novel, Su casa es mi casa (2001) was published in Spain in August 2009 by Bel Aqua, a Norma subsidiary, after a second edition was issued in Colombia in November 2008.

An American translator has expressed interest in Recursos Humanos, which García Ángel wrote during his mentorship.

García Ángel had said that he needed to change genres before starting on a third book, and so he has. Recently he embarked on a fresh narrative set against the backdrop of the drug trade. “Writing is like riding a bucking bronco”, he says. “You have to hang on with all your might and ignore the many distractions. Writing constantly tries to throw you off.”