The Volcano Daughters

(Paperback, Large Print Edition)

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A searingly original debut about two sisters and their flight from genocidewhich takes them from Hollywood to Paris to San Franciscos Cannery Roweach haunted along the way by the ghosts of their murdered friends, who are not yet done telling their stories

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

El Salvador, 1923. Graciela, a young girl growing up on a volcano in a community of Indigenous women, is summoned to the capital, where she is claimed as an oracle for a rising dictator. There she meets Consuelo, the sister she has never known, who was stolen from their home before Graciela was born. The two spend years under the cruel El Gran Pendejos regime, unwillingly helping his reign of terror, until genocide strikes the community from which they hail. Each believing the other to be dead, they escape, fleeing across the globe, reinventing themselves until fate ultimately brings them back together in the most unlikely of ways

Endlessly surprising, vividly imaginative, bursting with lush life, The Volcano Daughters charts a new history and mythology of El Salvador, fiercely bringing forth voices that have been calling out for generations.

Reviews

A Most Anticipated Book from Goodreads, Vulture, Seattle Times, Book Riot, Electric Literature, Debutiful, and Nerd Daily

"[A] lush, imaginative debut, with hints of magic."
People

The Volcano Daughters spits fire from its very first pageThis is an epic story, a remarkable achievement for a writer making her first foray into the literary landscape. Balibrera demonstrates a fearlessness that is rareThe hazards Graciela and Consuelo face, all of them hallucinatory, hair-raising, altogether Dickensian, are spunkily reported by their dead compaeras, spirited ghosts whose personalities we come to know along with the livingsWe have seen dead narrators before: William Faulkners As I Lay Dying, for instance, and Alice Sebolds The Lovely Bones. But seldom a whole chorus of dead women with their own quirks and eccentricities, kicking the plot through these pages as if it were dynamite with a lit wickWhatemerges triumphantly from Balibreras pages is a gifted new storyteller with a nose for history and a prodigious imagination.
The New York Times

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

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

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 canonA 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

This novel is astonishing: layered, lush, lyrical, and marvelously transporting. Gina Mara 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 Mara Balibrera is atremendousnew 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

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

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 Mara 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

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

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.
Ayegl Sava, author of The Anthropologists

My mind and heart were blown open by Gina MaraBalibreras 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 Salvadors violent dictator El Gran Pendejo left me breathlessand is one of the most powerful stories of motherhood, sisterhood, and survival Ive 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

HauntingSpanish words and phrases are interwoven throughout the novel, challenging readers to sink into Balibreras 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

CaptivatingVibrantTheir visions of Graciela and Consuelo are riveting Striking charactersBalibrera 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 ones culture close, even when it threatens to disrupt just-scarring woundsThe resilience of sisterly bonds forms the backbone of this swirling, heart-wrenching debut.
Kirkus

WrenchingWith keen psychological insight, Balibrera portrays how the women, each of whom doesnt 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 ones own course.
Publishers Weekly

Balibrera brings a bravura, magical-realist style to this story of resilience and loveAnimaginative retelling of a difficult piece of Central American history.
BookPage

Author Bio

GINA MARA BALIBRERA earned an MFA in Prose from the University of Michigans Helen Zell Writers' Program. Shes been awarded grants from Aspen Words, Tin House, the Rackham Foundation, and the Periplus Collective, as well as a Tyson Award, the Aura Estrada Prize, and the Under the Volcano Sandra Cisneros Fellowship.