Feral - by Gabriela Jauregui (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A tight-knit group of female friends investigate the murder of one of their own in this formally inventive literary novel from contemporary Mexico.

On The Worst Day, Diana gets a call informing her that her best friend, Eugenia, has been murdered while on an archaeological dig at the ruins of Teotihuacán, where she had enmeshed herself in a local resistance movement. In the aftermath, the remaining members of the self-declared Commune--Diana, whose prophetic visions failed to protect her beloved friend; Saratoga, a musician; and Yunuen, a visual artist--wade through their individual and shared grief while piecing together the mystery of Eugenia's death from the pages of her field journal.

A modern retelling of the Greek tragedy of Iphigenia in the context of contemporary Mexico, Feral interweaves narrative timelines to tell a story of female friendship, mourning, and resistance against gendered violence and extractivism. Politically pointed and richly imagined, Gabriela Jauregui's ambitious and lyrical debut sheds light on the dark realities of the present and imagines the feral, boundless possibility of the future.

Review Quotes

"An audacious and turbulent narrative. . . . In intimate and powerful prose, the novel shapes a lush archive that explores the dynamics of solidarity and affection among women while also confronting the harsh realities of femicide, impunity, and discrimination, among other scourges of contemporary Mexico." --Fernanda Melchor, Guillermo Arriaga, and Socorro Venegas, jury of the Amazon First Novel Award

About the Author

Gabriela Jauregui (b. Mexico City) is a writer, translator, and editor. She is the author of the novel Feral (forthcoming from Feminist Press), winner of the Mexican National Fine Arts Award and finalist for the Amazon First Novel Prize, as well as Many Fiestas, Leash Seeks Lost Bitch, Controlled Decay, and the short story collection La memoria de las cosas. She coedited and coauthored the collection Tsunami: Women's Voices from Mexico, now out from Feminist Press. She is a Paul and Daisy Soros New American Fellow and a Borchard Fellow. She is based in Mexico City.

Heather Cleary is an award-winning translator whose work with the poetry and prose of writers including Fernanda Trías, Dahlia de la Cerda, Sergio Chejfec, and Oliverio Girondo has been recognized by the International Booker Prize, English PEN, and the National Book Foundation, among others; her translation of Luis Felipe Fabre's Recital of the Dark Verses won the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Prize. She has published widely on literature in translation, coedited Tsunami: Women's Voices from Mexico, and is the author of The Translator's Visibility: Scenes from Contemporary Latin American Fiction. She is currently writing a novel about translation and betrayal. She is based in Mexico City.