Description: "Ainhoa lives a protected life within the walls of her grandmother's house in the neighborhood of Limones. Surrounded by a gaggle of aunts who love, correct, and teach her, Ainhoa narrates moments that evoke the powerful presence of music and dance in her daily life, while also touching on historical and current themes: the dollarisation of the Ecuadorian economy and the huge wave of emigration that it provoked, dividing families; environmental racism and the health effects on the Afro-Ecuadorian population of activities such as petroleum refining and African palm and banana growing; drug trafficking; AIDS; and gender-based violence. Never didactic, this singular novel brims with poetry and exuberance, as well as the pain of forgotten corners. Seen through Ainhoa's innocent eyes, these difficult topics are simply one side of the coin, of the culture she lives in-the other being the joy, language, music, dance, and vibrancy through which her community regularly "dances it out.""-- Provided by publisher.
Review Quotes: Electric Literature, A Most Anticipated Book of the Year
"Terrifically translated from the Spanish by Madeleine Arenivar . . . A short book, Ortiz Ruano's novel is both exhilarating and exhausting--just enough to make this reader happy that Carnival comes around only once a year." --Rien Fertel, The Times-Picayune "Evocative and captivating." --Karla J. Strand, Ms. "Written with unsparing sensual velocity, the novel Carnaval Fever is about family and cultural complexities and an exuberant, troubled girlhood . . . leading into the book's somber, integral conclusion." --Meg Nola, Foreword Reviews "Carnaval Fever by Yuliana Ortiz Ruano is a celebration of Afro-Ecuadorian identity and female resilience . . . Through it all, it is the power of sisterhood that will ensure the continued existence of the community, as it goes through heartbreaks, migration, and violence." --Linnea Gradin, Electric Literature "In this wondrous novel, both life's potential for beauty and harshness sing together. Ortiz has written a story you will not forget." --Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Chain Gang All-Stars "I totally fell in love with Ainhoa's voice, her freshness, her irrepressible curiosity, her refusal to be tamed." --Julia Alvarez "I read Carnaval Fever in one sitting. Yuliana Ortiz Ruano captures the way young Afro-Ecuadorian women build community by holding on to each other, and find ways to protect one another against a cruel world. Poetic, brutally honest, and deeply introspective, Ainhoa's story hooks into your heart and haunts you long after the last page is turned." --Zoraida Córdova, award-winning author of The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina