The Iliac Crest - by Cristina Rivera Garza (Paperback)

About the Book

A labyrinthine excavation of forgotten Mexican women writers, this Gothic novel illustrates how gendered language can wield destructive power.

Book Synopsis

A labyrinthine excavation of forgotten Mexican women writers, this Gothic novel illustrates how gendered language can wield destructive power.

Review Quotes

"Astounding and thought-provoking." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Rivera Garza's taut language drives the mystery forward, and she plays cleverly with the literary and political histories of Mexico, the importance of queer visibility, and the silencing of female authorship. An existential gothic tale about the high stakes of understanding--and accepting--the self." --Kirkus Reviews

"Enigmatic. . . . a joy to behold." --Los Angeles Review of Books

"Cristina Rivera Garza fills every chapter with suspense and nonstop mystery. Nonetheless, the plot is not centered in resolving these mysteries, but rather, it provides the reader a mind-bending journey filled with symbolism and a reality that follows its own rules of logic" --Latino Book Review

"One of the most fascinating novels I've read in years--utterly weird yet deeply resonant in its portrayal of gendered violence." -- The Millions

"Symbolism abounds in the book; again, there great depths one could dig through, and The Iliac Crest could easily be read over and with new discoveries. Garza's writing is gorgeous and precise, tying the various aspects of the book together into what is, at its core, a strange and unforgettable read." --The Riveter

"Although modest in length, Garza's creative piece is a complex puzzle that might take multiple readings to unravel fully... Despite the novel's brevity, Booker's translation makes clear the intricate and delicate poetic dance Garza crafts among the three main characters." --Shelf Awareness

"The Iliac Crest carries out a sophisticated, dynamic inquiry into language, gender, and power, and leaves its readers transformed by its lyrical investigation of what it means to inhabit a body." --Music & Literature

"[A] haunting, brilliant novel" --Center for the Art of Translation

"It seems to contain a multitude of novels, exploring a multitude of realities, experienced simultaneously. The result is exhilarating." --The Quarterly Conversation

"An intelligent, beautiful story about bodies disguised as a story about language disguised as a story about night terrors. Cristina Rivera Garza does not respect what is expected of a writer, of a novel, of language. She is an agitator." --Yuri Herrera, author of Kingdom Cons

"Like the ocean itself, Cristina Rivera Garza writes a world where borders shift and dissolve. In the curves of the fantastic, the highest realism is born. This world is weird. This world is so deeply true. Reader, I love this wholly perfect book."--Samantha Hunt, author of Mr. Splitfoot

"Warning: Cristina Rivera Garza is an explosive writer yet to be fully accounted for in English. She is an insubordinate stylist, a skilled creator of atmospheric and haunting language, and The Iliac Crest is a willfully queer piece where the workings of her wild imagination destabilize everything." --Lina Meruane, author of Seeing Red

About the Author

Cristina Rivera Garza is an award-winning author, translator, and critic. Her books, originally written in Spanish, have been translated into multiple languages. She is the recipient of the Roger Caillois Award for Latin American Literature (2013), the Anna Seghers-Preis (2005), and the only two-time winner of the International Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize (2001; 2009). She received her PhD in 2012 in Latin American history from the University of Houston, where she is currently Distinguished Professor in Hispanic Studies.

Sarah Booker is an English-to-Spanish translator and PhD candidate at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her research revolves around contemporary Latin American narratives and translation studies. She is particularly interested in the relationship between translation and identity in the region, as well as fictional representations of translation.