Sundial House – förlag

Based on a trip to the now abandoned Mexican mercury mining town of San Felipe Nuevo Mercurio, The Company explores the development of mercury mining as a technology and its present environmental consequences, both predictable and unforeseen, in what Cristina Rivera Garza terms “an exemplary disappropriative work.” In a book that subverts both textual and graphic expectations, part a involves a rewriting of Amparo Dávila’s “The Houseguest,” changing specific aspects of the text: verb tenses are transposed to the future; the houseguest becomes the menacing presence of The Company; and the domestic helper who suffers the intimidation of The Company along with her unnamed female employer is the machine. In part b, scientific reports dating from the 1950s to the present day, conversations with experts and miners, and excerpts from the story of “Long, Tall José” construct a history of mercury mining in the area and the subsequent environmental contamination. In both sections, text is accompanied by images that range from Gerber Bicecci’s intervened photographs of the ghost town and the surrounding area to technical diagrams and reinterpreted maps, plus pictograms from Manuel Felguérez’s La máquina estética (1975).As Rivera Garza says in her epilogue, “Gerber Bicecci moves us toward the past and the future, without for an instant forgetting the present we share . . . Nothing is at peace here, everything is at stake.”

Manuela left Colombia a year ago for a coastal town in the Basque region of Spain with her nine-year-old son, Juan Camilo, who has not said a word since they arrived. She is now working as a housekeeper-companion to Irene, a well-known dress designer left blind as the result of an accident. Gradually, as the two women exchange their stories, cope with the boy’s silence, and forge a strong friendship, the traumatic events that changed all of their lives emerge, with unexpected consequences. Despite the inherent dangers, Irene continues to swim alone in the ocean each day, attached to a harness of her own making, because “there’s more to life than just living.” Meanwhile, Manuela and her son each strive to overcome their fears and past experiences so they can begin their lives afresh in their new home, looking to the future rather than the past.Cruzar el agua / Crossing Waters is a powerful reflection on the need to avoid nostalgia, to move forward, to grow and adapt to new situations and environments. Such impetus dredges up critical elements from the past of each of the three main characters that cannot be suppressed. This adds a powerful dimension to the novel. As in other works by Luisa Etxenike, the images are haunting, and the language is poetic, starkly simple, and meticulously chosen to reflect the different voices and registers of her characters. A confrontation between human nature on the one hand and the forces of nature on the other is ever-present, and the relevant issues Etxenike explores in her prose leave her reader with much to consider, and also to relish.