When You Get to the Other Side
(By Mariana Osorio Gumá)
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| Author | Mariana Osorio Gumá |
Twelve-year-old Emilia and fifteen-year-old Gregorio spend their childhood following their tenacious grandmother, Mamá Lochi, through the oak- and jocote-filled mountains of Amatlán, México--gathering herbs for the folk remedies Mamá Lochi makes, listening to her awe-inspiring stories about becoming a curandera, and learning how to connect with the supernatural world themselves. But, when she passes away they're left alone, with their father hundreds of miles north in the U.S. So they scrape together all their money, and pay coyotes to smuggle them to the other side.
The siblings are exhausted and famished before they even make it to the border, and they fall into only more danger after crossing. After the predatory coyotes separate Emilia from Gregorio--having their own plans for the young girl--the siblings struggle through the parching desert, and a human trafficking operation hidden within it, to make their way back to each other. They draw strength from their profound bond as well as the supernatural abilities their grandmother helped them hone, such as catching glimpses of the future and hiding to the point of invisibility. Their efforts are interwoven with flashbacks to Mamá Lochi herself, whose tales of the mystical journey she took to become a curandera teaches the siblings how insubstantial and blurred the imagined borders between past and future, self and other, and life and death truly are--preparing them, as much as anything could, to experience all these spaces on their own journey.
This masterful novel, first published in Mexico, brings the exciting talents of author Mariana Osorio Gumá to English readers. Cecilia Weddell's translation skillfully captures Osorio Gumá's engrossing mix of lyrical prose and unpretentious, natural voices. A beautiful, powerful book, which portrays a migrant experience that pierces beyond stereotypes and superficial discussions.”
