Meanwhile, his Swedish crime novels have drawn on a world of strife that extends far beyond the Baltic.
The artists Rivera and Frida Kahlo (for whose diaries Fuentes wrote a brilliant introduction in 1995) appear as characters in the novel, which Fuentes sees as a "monument to the horrible 20th century, and to the place of my country and of Latin America in that world of strife, paradox and brutality".
From the chaos of an opening gig in an English coastal town, to the anarchic creativity of rehearsals in Ireland and the last-minute "new direction" of a terrifying appearance at SXSW in Texas, the assorted Soronprfbs look and sound like a "real" band trapped in a world of surreal strife.
An immersion in the screening rooms of the festival can come to feel like a round-the-world tour of strife and upheaval.
But then came the death of the prisoner: cold-blooded murder, according to the prosecution, or, say his comrades, the snapping of a man who had spent too long in a world of violence and strife.
It was like crossing a moat from the reality of a contemporary world of struggle and strife, to a paradise of storytelling, which opened infinite possibilities and aspirations in a young boy confronting a strange and scary future.
The increase may sound small, but scientists are pleased, given that the numbers could easily have declined; the park straddles Rwanda, Congo and Uganda, an area of the world with an extraordinary amount of strife.
In a world of looming inter-cultural strife, such conversations create resilience.
But as President Clinton sprints to move the peace process to a formal accord before he leaves office, one need look no farther than Westchester to see longstanding attempts to improve relations between Arab and Jew, though the centuries of strife half a world away have left a legacy of limits here too.
A gay pride parade in Jerusalem sounds preposterous: the same city that is the capital to three world religions and a millennia-long touchstone of strife and violence.
Attempting to make sense of his work — as writers and viewers are wont to do — Lisa Chalif, the Heckscher curator, said in the catalog that Mr. Neuman's "cautionary tale is as appropriate to our modern-day world of global economic challenge and political strife as Brandt's was five centuries ago".
