{"id":11376,"date":"2020-11-19T00:35:16","date_gmt":"2020-11-19T06:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/2022\/05\/from-eartheater-by-dolores-reyes-translated-by-julia-sanches\/"},"modified":"2024-05-10T07:09:43","modified_gmt":"2024-05-10T13:09:43","slug":"from-eartheater-by-dolores-reyes-translated-by-julia-sanches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/2020\/11\/from-eartheater-by-dolores-reyes-translated-by-julia-sanches\/","title":{"rendered":"From Eartheater by Dolores Reyes, translated by Julia Sanches"},"content":{"rendered":"

Named a \u201cfall 2020 must-read\u201d and one of the \u201cbest books of fall 2020\u201d by Time<\/em>, Vulture<\/em>, The Boston Globe<\/em>, Wired<\/em>, Cosmopolitan<\/em>, and more. Electrifying and provocative, visceral and profound, a powerful literary debut novel about a young woman whose compulsion to eat earth gives her visions of murdered and missing people\u2014an imaginative synthesis of mystery and magical realism that explores the dark tragedies of ordinary lives.<\/p>\n

Set in an unnamed slum in contemporary Argentina, Eartheater<\/em> is the story of a young woman who finds herself drawn to eating the earth\u2014a compulsion that gives her visions of broken and lost lives. With her first taste of dirt, she learns the horrifying truth of her mother\u2019s death. Disturbed by what she witnesses, the woman keeps her visions to herself. But when Eartheater<\/em> begins an unlikely relationship with a withdrawn police officer, word of her ability begins to spread, and soon desperate members of her community beg for her help, anxious to uncover the truth about their own loved ones.<\/p>\n

Surreal and haunting, spare yet complex, Eartheater<\/em>\u00a0is a dark, emotionally resonant tale told from a feminist perspective that brilliantly explores the stories of those left behind\u2014the women enduring the pain of uncertainty, whose lives have been shaped by violence and loss.<\/p>\n

Eartheater<\/em><\/a>, by Dolores Reyes and translated from Spanish by Julia Sanches, is out in November from HarperCollins.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cPap\u00e1\u2019s alive,\u201d I later said to Walter and T\u00eda, when I saw them gawking at me. I thought they\u2019d be happy, but I was wrong. They were quiet. Like, frozen still. I ran up to Walter and hugged him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the fuck have you done, you twerp?\u201d my t\u00eda said, grabbing my arm to pull me away from my brother.<\/p>\n

\u201cWalter, Pap\u00e1\u2019s alive,\u201d I repeated as she yanked me back.<\/p>\n

My brother came to me again and grabbed my hand. He took me to the bathroom and scrubbed my legs with a sponge, then left the faucet running. As he wiped my arms and hands, he made me swear I\u2019d never eat earth again.<\/p>\n

I swore and Walter stroked my head. With his hand on my head, I couldn\u2019t tell if he was taller or if I had shrunk.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow brush your teeth,\u201d he said, leaving me in the bathroom on my own.<\/p>\n

I looked in the mirror, smiled: my teeth were mud-stained. I thought of Pap\u00e1 and his smokes, the scent and darkness of his mouth, of how they wanted to forget him and how that was probably for the best. I held my brush under the stream of water, squeezed on some toothpaste, got everything wet, started brushing.<\/p>\n

I walked back to the kitchen and tried one last time:<\/p>\n

\u201cYour brother\u2019s alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

T\u00eda turned around and looked furiously at me. She pulled a pack of smokes from her jean pocket.<\/p>\n

\u201cFilthy brat. I catch you eating dirt again and I\u2019ll burn your tongue with a lighter.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a while, I was so scared I couldn\u2019t bring myself to even step on the earth, and avoided going outside without shoes on. Whenever I felt like eating dirt, I\u2019d scarf down piping hot food, the second T\u00eda took it off the stove. I wouldn\u2019t wait. I\u2019d stuff my mouth and feel it blister. Then, tongue scorched, I\u2019d down one glass after another of water. Belly full, the urge to scarf earth went away. The next day, I could hardly eat, I could hardly talk.<\/p>\n

In time, they stopped messing with us at school. No more earth in my backpack dirtying my notebooks followed by muffled sniggers. No more alfajor wrappers\u2014sweets I wanted but couldn\u2019t buy\u2014filled with dirt sitting on my chair. Just the odd look, and a lot of silence.<\/p>\n

And, without the earth, everything was perfect.<\/p>\n

Until Se\u00f1orita Ana stopped coming to school.<\/p>\n

Translated by Julia Sanches<\/p>\n

Excerpt from Eartheater<\/i> by Dolores Reyes. Published by HarperVia. Copyright \u00a9 2020 HarperCollins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Named a \u201cfall 2020 must-read\u201d and one of the \u201cbest books of fall 2020\u201d by Time, Vulture, The Boston Globe, Wired, Cosmopolitan, and more. Electrifying and provocative, visceral and profound, a powerful literary debut novel about a young woman whose compulsion to eat earth gives her visions of murdered and missing people\u2014an imaginative synthesis of mystery and magical realism that explores the dark tragedies of ordinary lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4149,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2982,2989,4448],"genre":[2022],"pretext":[],"section":[2365],"translator":[3146],"lal_author":[3063],"class_list":["post-11376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-argentina-es","tag-argentina-es-2","tag-numero-16","genre-preview-es","section-translation-previews-and-new-releases-es","translator-julia-sanches-es","lal_author-dolores-reyes-es"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11376"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33318,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11376\/revisions\/33318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11376"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=11376"},{"taxonomy":"pretext","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pretext?post=11376"},{"taxonomy":"section","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/section?post=11376"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/translator?post=11376"},{"taxonomy":"lal_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lal_author?post=11376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}