Which Colombian author wrote 'The Sound of Things Falling'?

The Colombian author who wrote *The Sound of Things Falling* is Juan Gabriel Vásquez.

First published in Spanish as *El ruido de las cosas al caer* in 2011, the novel follows Antonio Yammara, a Bogotá law professor whose life is changed by a violent shooting. Through his connection with Ricardo Laverde’s daughter, Maya, Antonio investigates how Colombia’s drug wars affected ordinary families, relationships, and personal memory.

The book is not simply a crime thriller. Vásquez uses Ricardo’s history, including his imprisonment for drug smuggling, to explore how public violence enters private life. The novel shifts across time, connecting the atmosphere of 1990s Bogotá with earlier decades shaped by the cocaine trade and political terror.

Readers sometimes confuse Vásquez with Gabriel García Márquez because both are major Colombian novelists, but they belong to different generations and have distinct styles. The novel won the 2011 Alfaguara Prize, while Anne McLean’s English translation won the 2014 International Dublin Literary Award.