"Family Album is Ecuadorian author Gabriela Alemâan's rollicking follow up to her acclaimed English-language debut, Poso Wells. Alemâan is known for her spirited and sardonic take on the fatefully interconnected--and often highly compromised--forces at work in present-day South America, and particularly in Ecuador. In this collection of eight hugely entertaining short stories, she dives deep into the tales that Ecuadorian's like to tell about themselves, following the foundational creation myths of that small South American nation all the way to their logical and sometimes ignominious ends. A…mehr
"Family Album is Ecuadorian author Gabriela Alemâan's rollicking follow up to her acclaimed English-language debut, Poso Wells. Alemâan is known for her spirited and sardonic take on the fatefully interconnected--and often highly compromised--forces at work in present-day South America, and particularly in Ecuador. In this collection of eight hugely entertaining short stories, she dives deep into the tales that Ecuadorian's like to tell about themselves, following the foundational creation myths of that small South American nation all the way to their logical and sometimes ignominious ends. A muddy brew of pop-culture and pop-folklore yields intriguing, lesser-known episodes of contemporary Ecuadorian history, along with a rich cast of unforgettable minor characters whose intimate stories open up onto a vista of Ecuador's place on the world stage, now and all along the way. Alemâan teases tropes of hardboiled detective fiction, satire, and adventure narratives to recast the discussion of historical forces and national identity. The stories provide a humorous spin on universal themes of human frailty and desire, while taking on some difficult and complex issues, including misogynistic violence, the exploitation and appropriation of natural resources, violence against indigenous groups, religious tensions, political corruption, and the steady flow of illicit drugs. From a pair of deep-sea divers using Robinson Crusoe's map of a shipwreck to locate sunken treasure in the seas of the Galapagos Archipelago, to an outlaw pilot who flies a group of missionaries from the American Midwest deep into the Amazon jungle, where their attempt to convert an indigenous village results in a massacre, opening the way for the appropriation of natives' land by oil companies; from a small group of mysterious Germans who took refuge on an unpopulated Galapagos island during the lead-up to the Second World War, to a night with the husband of Ecuador's most infamous expat, Lorena Bobbit, this series of cracked "family portraits" provides a cast of heroes and anti-heroes in stories that sneak up on a reader before they know what's happened: they've learned a great deal more about a country whose more well known exports -- soccer, coffee and cocoa--mask a much more intriguing national story that's ripe for the telling"--
Gabriela Alemán was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She received a PhD at Tulane University and holds a Master's degree in Latin American Literature from Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar. She currently resides in Quito, Ecuador. Her literary honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006; member of Bogotá 39, a 2007 selection of the most important up-and-coming writers in Latin America in the post-Boom generation; one of five finalists for the 2015 Premio Hispanoamericano de Cuento Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia) for her short story collection La muerte silba un blues; and winner of several prizes for critical essays on literature and film. Her novel Poso Wells was published in English translation by City Lights in 2018, followed up with the publication of her short story collection Family Album, also published in English translation by City Lights in 2022. She lives in Quito, Ecuador. Dick Cluster has translated four books for City Lights including In the Cold of the Malecón and Other Stories (2000) by Antonio José Ponte, Frigid Tales (2002) by Pedro de Jesus, A Corner of the World (2014) by Mylene Fernández-Pintado, and Poso Wells (2018) by Gabriela Alemán. His own novels include Return to Sender (1988), Repulse Monkey (1989), and Obligations of the Bone (1992). Cluster lives in Oakland, California. Mary Ellen Fieweger has translated a number of books, including Wolves’ Dream by Abdón Ubidia, Clio’s Laws: On History and Language by Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo, and two anthologies of short stories by Ecuadorian writers: Ten Stories from Ecuador/Diez cuentistas ecuatorianos and Contemporary Ecuadorian Short Stories. Her own works include Es un monstruo grande y pisa fuerte: la minería en el Ecuador y el mundo and A History of Ecuador/Una historia del Ecuador. Fieweger lives in Ecuador.
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