Join an in-person book launch in celebration of Ghost of You by Margarita Saona (translated by Luciana Erregue). For this event, Margarita will be in conversation with Chicago-based authors Laura Ring and Caroline Guindon.

Please note: Pre-registration for this event is required. By pre-registering, you are verifying that you are fully vaccinated and will wear a mask throughout the entirety of the event.

A fascinating short story collection from Latinx academic and heart transplant survivor

Translated by Luciana Erregue in collaboration with the author, Margarita Saona.

Nothing says post-anthropocentric like Saona’s stories. Her characters, resisting gender and other labels inhabit cities that while existing in the real world, refuse to be pinned down on a map. In Saona’s stories, animals behave like humans, humans, like animals, or the elements, in a relentless phantasmagoria reminiscent of ancient mythology. This disembodiment is present in Saona’s narrative style, having herself hovered between life and death shortly before receiving a life-saving new heart. The Spanish original version of THE GHOST OF YOU, (La ciudad en que no est s) gives these ghosts an English-speaking home, in the hopes they can remain in the memory of their readers the same way someone’s presence stills haunts a place.

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Margarita Saona writes in a variety of genres: essay, narrative, poetry, and scholarly research. She studied linguistics and literature at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Peru and received her Ph.D. in Latin American literature from Columbia University in New York. She is interested in issues of memory, empathy, and representation in literature and the arts. Her work on literary and cultural criticism include  Novelas familiares: Figuraciones de la nación en la novela latinoamericana contemporánea  (Rosario, 2004),  Memory Matters in Transitional Perú (London, 2014), and Despadre: Masculinidades, , travestimos y ficciones de la ley en la literatura peruana (Lima, 2021). Her short story titles are Comehoras (Lima, 2008), Objeto perdido (Lima, 2012),  La ciudad en que no estás (Lima, 2021), and The Ghost of You, and her poetry collection is entitled  Corazón de hojalata/Tin Heart  (Chicago, 2017). She is currently working on two essays: De monstruos y cyborgs, about medical interventions and their impact on the sense of being, and Corazón en trance, a multi-genre memoir of heart transplantation.

Caroline Guindon is a Québécoise author residing in Chicago. She holds a PhD in musicology from the Université de Montréal. Several years ago, she left academia in order to embrace more fully the monastic thrills of a writing life. Her short stories have appeared in Moebius and in XYZ, La revue de la nouvelle. A short story collection, La mémoire des cathédrales, as well as two novels, Cythère and Sillages (Wakes), were published in Montreal by Lévesque éditeur. A third novel, Bruissements (Rustles), is forthcoming (September 2023).

Laura A. Ring is the author of Field Notes Recovered from the Expedition to Devil’s Peak, winner of the 2020 Foster-Stahl chapbook competition. Her poems have appeared in RHINO, Stirring, and Rogue Agent, among other places. Laura holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Chicago, where she serves as the Librarian in charge of the Southern Asia and Anthropology collections. Her ethnography Zenana: Everyday Peace in a Karachi Apartment Building was published by Indiana University Press.

Image Description: A green banner with a faint pattern of open books. To the left, a photo portrait of the author, next to a small image of the book cover. The text reads, “Women & Children First Presents Margarita Saona in conversation with Laura Ring and Caroline Guindon, Friday March 10, 7PM CST, masks and proof of vaccination required.”

Accessibility: Email wcfbooks@gmail.com with questions or to request accommodations.