Publishers Weekly
06/24/2024
Balibrera’s wrenching debut follows sisters Consuelo and Graciela after they’re displaced by a massacre in El Salvador. As little girls in 1914, they’re raised by their Indigenous mother, Socorrito, who labors on a coffee finca and was pursued by the girls’ biological father, Germán, the second most powerful man on the finca, because of her light skin. When Consuelo is four, Germán takes her from Socorrito and brings her home to his wife, Perlita, who is barren. After Germán dies in 1923, Perlita steals the younger Graciela and gives Consuelo to the country’s dictator, a former general known by his many detractors as El Gran Pendejo, as part of a complex plot to curry favor with him. In the 1930s, when El Gran Pendejo launches a genocidal campaign against the young women’s Indigenous community, they both flee the country. Consuelo, an aspiring artist, pursues her career in San Francisco and France, while Graciela, an actor, stars in degrading Spanish-language films in Hollywood. With keen psychological insight, Balibrera portrays how the women, each of whom doesn’t know the other has survived, make hard choices in search of fulfillment. It adds up to a powerful story of finding the strength to chart one’s own course. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
A Most Anticipated Book from Vulture, Seattle Times, Book Riot, Electric Literature, Debutiful, and Nerd Daily
“A gripping and spellbinding novel about a sisterhood ripped apart by violence, narrated by a ghostly chorus. An unforgettable debut.”
—Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half
“A new heir to the magical-realism throne.”
—Seattle Times
“A bilingual, mythological, and original debut about resistance and survival.”
—Vulture
“A new book to be entered into the historical magical realism canon…A staggering tome of sisterhood, disaster, and myth. Readers can expect an imaginative roller coaster of emotion as the sisters do everything they can do to reconnect.”
—Debutiful
“Stunning: original, magical, brutal, beautiful. A sweeping yet intimate look at love, sisterhood, and resistance in the face of devastation.”
—Charmaine Wilkerson, author of Black Cake
“Inventive, surprising, and potent, I fell under Gina Balibrera's spell from the first line and could not look away. To write a book with this much heart, where each sentence feels like it plumbs the darkest depths and soars to the brightest of skies, you have to be some sort of savant of the human heart. The Volcano Daughters blew my mind with its rich humor, its beautiful portrayal of women's lives, and its unstoppable plot, all wrapped up in a narrative voice I'd follow anywhere. How lucky we are to have Balibrera spinning tales for us this good. I'll be her reader for life.”
—Chelsea Bieker, author of Madwoman
“The Volcano Daughters is a beautiful novel, weaving together magic and humor with tragedy and the unflinching documentary of injustice in a way that is so skillful and surprising.”
—Eleanor Shearer, author of River Sing Me Home
“Epic and intimate, alive and mournful, The Volcano Daughters is an exquisite novel teeming with life, ghosts, pain, and hope. I was swept away by its lyrical, generous storytelling. What a gorgeous, moving work.”
—Ayşegül Savaş, author of The Anthropologists
“This novel is astonishing: layered, lush, lyrical, and marvelously transporting. Gina María Balibrera has woven a gorgeous and painful tapestry, rich with history, memory, and the troubling voices of the dead who will not be silenced. The Volcano Daughters is a dazzling accomplishment.”
—Kirstin Valdez Quade, author of The Five Wounds
“Gina María Balibrera is a tremendous new talent. The Volcano Daughters is a towering achievement at the intersection of ancient myth, political history, and vibrant storytelling. A fierce and pulsating novel, this book will capture your heart and enrich your mind.”
—Kali Fajardo-Anstine, bestselling author of Woman of Light and Sabrina & Corina
“Every character comes vibrantly to life in The Volcano Daughters. Every scene surprises with unexpected tremors of questions about the legacy of political violence, how social upheaval shapes sibling dynamics and haunts the psyches of children for the rest of their lives. Gina María Balibrera is a writer of tremendous imagination who draws on her knowledge of two languages to craft a first novel unlike any other I've read.”
—Idra Novey, author of Take What You Need
“My mind and heart were blown open by Gina María Balibrera’s astonishing debut. The Volcano Daughters is a work of fierce ambition and blazing emotion, narrated by an unforgettable chorus of ghosts who trace the story of their friends, sisters Graciela and Consuelo, through a journey that spans continents and generations. As the chorus says: ‘The word makes the world,’ and with this novel, her first, Balibrera has done nothing less. Her invocation of the voices of a group of women whose lives were distorted and cut short by El Salvador’s violent dictator El Gran Pendejo left me breathless—and is one of the most powerful stories of motherhood, sisterhood, and survival I’ve ever read. A colossal achievement.”
—Julie Buntin, author of Marlena
“A haunting (and haunted) debut, The Volcano Daughters is a dark marvel of a book, at once lush and stark, mythic and earthy. Balibrera's fusion of history and legend, puts me in mind of a young Isabel Allende.”
—Peter Ho Davies, author of A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself
“Haunting…Spanish words and phrases are interwoven throughout the novel, challenging readers to sink into Balibrera’s lushly described world, where meaning is found through experience rather than translation. A devastating story of sisterhood, community, and memory, quietly magical and utterly unforgettable.”
—Library Journal, starred review
“Captivating…Vibrant…Their visions of Graciela and Consuelo are riveting… Striking characters…Balibrera eulogizes the lives lost in La Matanza, the real-life 1932 massacre of the Pipil people by the Salvadoran government, and underscores the value of holding one’s culture close, even when it threatens to disrupt just-scarring wounds…The resilience of sisterly bonds forms the backbone of this swirling, heart-wrenching debut.”
—Kirkus
“Wrenching…With keen psychological insight, Balibrera portrays how the women, each of whom doesn’t know the other has survived, make hard choices in search of fulfillment. It adds up to a powerful story of finding the strength to chart one’s own course.”
—Publishers Weekly
Library Journal
★ 07/01/2024
DEBUT Balibrera's haunting debut traces the lives of Graciela and Consuelo, sisters who escape 1930s El Salvador in the wake of genocide and political unrest. Born into a close-knit community of Indigenous women at the foot of a volcano, Graciela and Consuelo were separated at an early age, with Graciela staying near the volcano and Consuelo being whisked away to the capital city in 1923. After several years, the sisters are finally reunited in the San Salvador, where they cautiously navigate a world governed by the whims of a menacing, increasingly unstable dictator. Soon, simmering political tensions erupt into chaos, resulting in La Matanza, a massacre that leaves each sister thinking the other is dead. Grief-stricken and shell-shocked, they each separately flee the country. Throughout the continent-spanning, decades-long journeys that follow, Graciela and Consuelo are accompanied by the ghosts of their slain comrades—Lourdes, María, Cora, and Lucía—who serve as an otherworldly chorus, supplying background information, pointed commentary, and often-unheeded advice. Spanish words and phrases are interwoven throughout the novel, challenging readers to sink into Balibrera's lushly described world, where meaning is found through experience rather than translation. VERDICT A devastating story of sisterhood, community, and memory, quietly magical and utterly unforgettable.—Sarah Hashimoto
