Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Independent Review of Books
A Most Anticipated Book from Goodreads, Vulture, Seattle Times, Book Riot, Electric Literature, Debutiful, Yahoo, and Nerd Daily
“[A] lush, imaginative debut, with hints of magic.”
—People
“The Volcano Daughters spits fire from its very first page…This is an epic story, a remarkable achievement for a writer making her first foray into the literary landscape. Balibrera demonstrates a fearlessness that is rare…The hazards Graciela and Consuelo face, all of them hallucinatory, hair-raising, altogether Dickensian, are spunkily reported by their dead compañeras, spirited ghosts whose personalities we come to know along with the living’s…We have seen dead narrators before: William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, for instance, and Alice Sebold’s 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 wick…What emerges triumphantly from Balibrera’s 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
“A beautiful and ambitious novel. I highly recommend.”
—Ann Patchett on Instagram
“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
“Women and their power to save their own lives—and the lives of others—form the foundation of this globe-trotting novel that upends readers’ expectations of who has the power to tell a story. Riveting, surprising and a bit spooky…A great book.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“A fiery, pacey novel that knits together political history, magical realism and vivacious storytelling…An unyielding plot revealing the resilience of sisterhood.”
—Dua Lipa’s Service95
“Thought-provoking…Balibrera deftly melds Latin American myth with El Salvadoran history, fashioning an imaginative tale told with attitude, a fresh view of real-life events, and a pacing that enlivens every page. It’s also magical realism at its best…Renowned authors like Gabriel García Márquez and Isabel Allende helped popularize the magical-realism genre, and Balibrera serves it well here…Rich and lyrical…Immersive, highly visual, sometimes humorous, and often provocative. The women portrayed in these pages are strong and resourceful, conflicted and authentic.”
—Washington Independent Review of Books
“Defiant, engrossing and haunting…With palatable love and unchecked reckoning, Balibrera accomplishes the feat of rendering these spirits alive—and these animas become the driving force of this page-turner…The Volcano Daughters opens with such a strong narrative voice, it seduces, it is a voice that captivates…An epic story of women who represent the overlooked, the forgotten, the disappeared but somehow by tooth, nail, grit, spit and fire were relentless in their will to live…Balibrera writes, ‘the word makes the world,’ and she certainly achieves this, balancing the historical and the intimate. She applies care to the depiction of violence, masterfully creating reprieve when there’s pressure on the prose; she subverts exploitation of pain on the page while demanding the reader witness. The novel tackles head-on colorism, discrimination, class disparity, gender violence in a nuanced manner…It’s this seductive, lyrical prose, and her embrace of those from the diaspora, that invites us to recognize that this is our people’s story. Balibrera delivers. And everyone needs to listen.”
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Lyrical…Full of magical realism…Wonderful.”
—Daily Mail
“It’s hard to do justice to Gina María Balibrera’s extraordinary debut The Volcano Daughters…The blistering heart and humor that define this book…The concept is original—and the writing itself is astoundingly good…May be the most evocative, least forgettable thing I’ve read all year.”
—Same Page SF
“A new book to be entered into the historical magical realism canon…A 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 debut is colourful and inventive; a magical realist treat.”
—The Times
“A lyrical, evocative ride through the history and mythology of El Salvador…This is a sweeping, epic tale…An immersive experience, one steeped in the sights, sounds, language, and legends of El Salvador…Well worth a read.”
—Irish Sunday Independent
“Riveting…With rich storytelling and vivid imagery, this searing narrative redefines history and mythology.”
—Denizen
“This novel is astonishing: layered, lush, lyrical, and marvelously transporting. Gina María 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 María Balibrera is a tremendous new 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 María 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.”
—Ayşegül Savaş, author of The Anthropologists
“My mind and heart were blown open by Gina María Balibrera’s 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 Salvador’s violent dictator El Gran Pendejo left me breathless—and is one of the most powerful stories of motherhood, sisterhood, and survival I’ve 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
“Haunting…Spanish words and phrases are interwoven throughout the novel, challenging readers to sink into Balibrera’s 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
“Captivating…Vibrant…Their visions of Graciela and Consuelo are riveting… Striking characters…Balibrera 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 one’s culture close, even when it threatens to disrupt just-scarring wounds…The resilience of sisterly bonds forms the backbone of this swirling, heart-wrenching debut.”
—Kirkus
“Wrenching…With keen psychological insight, Balibrera portrays how the women, each of whom doesn’t 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 one’s own course.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Lush… The young narrators provide irreverent commentary alongside dramatic storytelling depicting the hardscrabble lives of determined sisters yearning for better lives.”
—Booklist
“Balibrera brings a bravura, magical-realist style to this story of resilience and love…An imaginative retelling of a difficult piece of Central American history.”
—BookPage
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