Terrorists seize a party at the vice presidential mansion in an unnamed South American country. An opera singer is among the hostages. Patchett's 2001 novel, loosely based on the 1996 Japanese embassy siege in Lima, turns a hostage crisis into a fable about art, language, and unexpected love. Won the PEN/Faulkner and the Orange Prize. The prose is calm where the situation is not.

The case for it, the case against, and the rest of the canon open with Pro.