Gina María Balibrera is a Salvadoran-American writer. She has an MFA in Prose from the University of Michigan's Helen Zell Writers' Program, where she was also a postgraduate fellow. She has been awarded grants from the Gould Center, the Rackham Institute, a Tyson Award, the Aura Estrada Prize, the Under the Volcano Sandra Cisneros Fellowship, and is currently a member of the inaugural Periplus Fellowship cohort. The Volcano Daughters is her first novel. ... Read more Read less
Four of us. Lourdes, María, Cora, Lucia. We had once been five, before
Graciela left us. All of these cuentos belong to us. Trust us when we
take your hands.
Graciela is raised in the shadow of El Salvador's Izalco volcanos, dusty-
kneed and bound closely to her friends. Her life changes entirely when a
messenger from the Capital comes to claim her. At nine years old she has
been selected to work as an oracle to the country's fearsome dictator, who
believes she is a muse capable of foreseeing the future of El Salvador.
Brought to the city, far from her mother and friends, Graciela is introduced to
Consuelo, the sister she’s never known. Consuelo is wilful, talented and
desirous, and despite their differences the girls are a small fortress within the
dictator’s regime.
La Matanza - the brutal massacre that tore through El Salvador in 1932 - will
change their lives, and their country, forever. But neither ever gives up hope
that they might be reunited once more. Narrated by a chorus of victims of the
massacre - ghost girls who have died, but who have not yet finished telling
their story - The Volcano Daughters is an unforgettable story about
resilience, reinvention and sisterhood.
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