PEN Translation Prize, Finalist
"Pondering
revolutionary Cuba, the Berlin Wall, and the caves of Cappadocia,
these essays explore themes of memory, war, movement, and home."--The
New Yorker
"A
thoughtful, roving meditation on migration, language, and
home."--Publishers Weekly
In
her prize-winning debut, Mexican essayist Mariana Oliver trains her
gaze on migration in its many forms, moving between real cities and
other more inaccessible territories: language, memory, pain, desire,
and the body. With an abiding curiosity and poetic ease, Oliver leads
us through the underground city of Cappadocia, explores the
vicissitudes of a Berlin marked by historical fracture, recalls a
shocking childhood exodus, and recreates the intimacy of the spaces
we inhabit. Blending criticism, reportage, and a travel writing all
her own, Oliver presents a brilliant collection of essays that asks
us what it means to leave the familiar behind and make the unfamiliar
our own.
