Description: From one of Mexico's most exciting young writers, a cosmopolitan and candid essay collection exploring life in cities across the world and reflecting on the transformative importance of literature in understanding ourselves
In ten intimate essays, Daniel Saldaña París explores the cities he has lived in, each one home to a new iteration of himself. In Mexico City he's a young poet eager to prove himself. In Montreal--an opioid addict desperate for relief. In Madrid--a lonely student seeking pleasure in grotesque extremes. These now diverging, now coalescing selves raise questions: Where can we find authenticity? How do we construct the stories that define us? What if our formative memories are closer to fiction than truth? Saldaña París turns to literature and film, poetry and philosophy for answers. The result is a hybrid of memoir and criticism, "a sensory work, full of soundscapes, filth, planes, closed spaces, open vastness" (El País).Brief description: Christina MacSweeney is the award-winning literary translator of works by Julian Herbert, Valeria Luiselli, and Elvira Navarro. She received the 2024 Sundial Literary Translation Award for her translation of Veronica Gerber Bicecci's The Company.