The archetypal Onetti hero, Medina is at different times of his life a (phoney) doctor, a painter and a police chief. He lives in Lavanda, across the river from Santa Maria, a town he is not allowed to enter and that he, therefore, wishes to destroy. In the end the wind speaks with devastating effect. The first novel written in exile in Spain, Let the Wind Speak is Onetti coming to terms with his exclusion from the Santa Marias of his childhood, his first sexual conquests, his first cigarettes, his first double whiskeys. A lover's bitter lament - it ends in the destruction of the object of adoration.

Latin American literature has few secrets to divulge to the English-speaking world; but one of them is the Uruguayan novelist Juan Carlos Onetti * Guardian *
The Graham Greene of Uruguay... foreshadowing the work of Beckett and Camus * London Review of Books *
A rare chance to catch up with the neglected Uruguan novelist * Metro *
Onetti's world is sick and his hero sick of it, but his compelling, messy existentialism makes Let the Wind Speak a deceptively modern novel, and its reissue a cause for celebration * Observer *
A perplexing but inspiring writer * Guardian *

Acknowledged as one of the great Latin American writers of the twentieth century, Juan Carlos Onetti was born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1909. For many years he worked as a journalist in Buenos Aires. His novels include The Well, No Man's Life, and his best known work, The Shipyard. He was awarded Uruguay's national literature prize in 1963 and Spain's prestigious Cervantes Prize in 1980. He lived in Madrid until his death in 1994.