The Sky Is Incomplete - by Irmgard Emmelhainz (Paperback)

About the Book

A Mexican feminist observer's reflections on living in the Occupied Territories (West Bank), Palestine, translated into English for the first time

Book Synopsis

Translated from Spanish for the first time, and with a new introduction to the English edition, The Sky Is Incomplete comprises sixty short entries detailing life in and reflections on the Occupied Territories of Palestine in the twenty-first century over prolonged stays between 2007-2015. In this collection, Irmgard Emmelhainz operates in the committed literature tradition of Walter Benjamin and André Gide in Moscow in the 1920s, and Susan Sontag and Juan Goytisolo in Sarajevo in the 1990s--writers and cultural observers grappling with the political processes of others, elsewhere.

In order to render the issue of representation, of speaking on behalf of the Palestinian ordeal in all its complexity, The Sky Is Incomplete is composed as a collage, gathering diary entries, letters, experimental passages, script, poetry, art criticism, political analysis, and other genres to convey an opaque view of the Palestine Question. Beyond representation in the sense of giving testimony or speaking on behalf of the Palestinians, however, the author's parting point is relational: The Sky Is Incomplete is about encounters--with friends, mentors, interlocutors, lovers, children, activists, and soldiers (Israeli and Palestinian).

Review Quotes

Praise for the Spanish edition:

"A collage of visions that goes through a spectrum of the war between Palestine and Israel from first hand experience and with different voices... a drawing of how one lives under one of the most urgent political conflicts today."
--Fran Zabaleta, author of Viaje al interior: 80 días en furgo por la España olvidada

"The Sky Is Incomplete recounts in diary form the author's experience of itinerant life in one of the areas of greatest indefinite conflict in history... Creating a voice to talk about this conflict through personal experience was fundamental for Emmelhainz, who presents a dialogue with nods to admired writers who have debated this conflict."
--Azaneth Cruz for Reporte Índigo

About the Author

Irmgard Emmelhainz is an independent translator, writer, researcher, and lecturer based in Mexico City. Her writings on film, the Palestine Question, art, cinema, culture, and neoliberalism have been translated into several languages and presented at an array of international venues, including the Graduate School of Design at Harvard (2014); the Walter Benjamin in Palestine Conference (2015); the New School and the Americas Society (2016); SBC Gallery, Montreal (2016); the Curatorial Summit at the School of Visual Arts, New York (2017); and the Munch Museum, Oslo (2018). She is the author of El cielo está incompleto: Cuadernos de viaje en Palestina (Spanish, 2017) and Jean-Luc Godard's Political Filmmaking (English, 2019), and Toxic Loves, Impossible Futures (VUP, 2022).