Los Cazadores

Famous for his refined prose, his precise words and his expressive silences, which reach high heights of brilliance in imperishable novels such as Light Years or All There Is, James Salter is undoubtedly one of the great American writers. A military man by profession, he soon left the army to devote himself to his literary career, which he began with The Hunters, published in installments in 1956 and scrupulously revised by the author himself half a century after its appearance. A novel that contains the experiences of Salter's three years as a fighter pilot in the Korean War and contains some of the most eminent pages ever written about the experience of flying.

Upon his arrival at Kimpo Air Base, Captain Cleve Connell makes a firm promise to join the elite fighter pilots who have shot down more than five Korean fighters. Parallel to the fierce aerial contest, however, an underhanded conflict develops on the ground among the airmen themselves, as Connell's successive failures contrast with the successes of his colleagues and call into question his skill and courage. Until one day, suspended in the vastness of the cosmos above the Yalu River and aware of his insignificance, Connell finally realizes that only those who can identify their enemy and defeat him, whatever his side, can triumph. Even if that enemy is oneself.

Compared to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry for the scenes of combat in the skies, James Salter transcends the war genre thanks to the similes between the luminous descriptions of the landscape and the emotional tension of the protagonists; and thus turns this journey through the soul of Cleve Connell into an extraordinary variation of the desire for glory confronted with the mirror of death.