The Banana Wars

Urab , Colombia, 1990: A violent strike at the banana plantations across Urab leads to crops in flames, managers murdered, and the world banana economy teetering on the brink. In retaliation, the banana producers finance right-wing paramilitaries to cleanse the zone of guerrillas and their supposed collaborators.

Through the intertwined lives of four characters--a banana worker making a play for power in the guerrillas, a decadent Colombian banana planter who runs his business the safety of Medell n, a widow in Urab struggling to stay on the right side of the local paramilitaries, and an American banana executive wading ever deeper into troubled waters--The Banana Wars charts the struggle to survive in impossible conditions, in a place where no one is to be trusted and one false move can lead to death.

Starkly drawn from the true history of Urab and this period of conflict, including the gasoline-on-fire role of US corporate interests, celebrated author Alan Grostephan's latest is a knuckles-out, no-holds-barred historical historical novel for fans of Jesmyn Ward, William Faulkner, and Fernanda Melchor.