An intimate story from the family archive,a story that is also the infamous history of our continent'Valeria Luiselli,author of Lost Children Archive'Powerful and searing'Samanta Schweblin,author of Fever DreamA provocative autobiographical novel that reckons with the legacy of colonialism through one woman's family ties to both colonised and coloniserIn an ethnographic museum in Paris,Gabriela Wiener is confronted with her unusual inheritance. She is visiting an exhibition of pre-Columbian artefacts,the spoils of European colonial plunder. As she peers through the glass,she sees sculptures of Indigenous faces that resemble her own - but the man responsible for pillaging them was her own great-great-grandfather,Austrian colonial explorer Charles Wiener.In the wake of her father's death,Gabriela begins delving into all she has inherited from her paternal line. From the brutal trail of racism and theft that Charles left behind to revelations of her father's infidelity,she traces a legacy of abandonment,jealousy and colonial violence,in turn reframing her own struggles with desire,love and race. Seeking relief from these personal and historical wounds,Gabriela turns to the body and desire as sources of both constraint and potential freedom.Blending personal,historical and fictional writing,Undiscovered tells of a search for identity beyond the old stories of patriarchs and plunder. Subversive,intimate and fiercely irreverent,it builds to a powerful call for decolonization.
MEDIA REVIEWS
Publisher: Pushkin PressISBN: 9781782279327Dimensions: 216 x 135 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
Wiener has rescued an intimate story from the family archive,a story that is also the infamous history of our continent,with her trademark intelligence and irreverent humor. Her prose,sober and forward,is fresh air; her view allows us to be testimonies of Latin America's cycles of plundering and looting(Undiscovered) captivated me... Powerful and searing,this novel snaps,bucks,heals,and snaps againPerhaps the most irreverent and daring voice of the new literary generation of Latin American womenUndiscovered's beautiful blend of fiction and personal feeling on everything from sex,to death,to Peru's traumatic history to France's heritage-colonial industry could not be more contemporary,vital and important,or expressed in more dynamic and immersive proseThe best book that I've read about ancestry and love in the contemporary postcolonial conditionGabriela Wiener's ease and grace allow her in Undiscovered to talk about family,desire,racism,colonialism and being a migrant both tenderly and sharply,vulnerable but strong like her beautiful writingA rollicking decolonial fact-fiction remix of her family's histories,the life of her great-great-great grandfather,the explorer Charles Wiener,and how all this time plays out in her own body,and her current life,and polyamorous household in MadridFollowing the trail of Gabriela Wiener,walking behind her,dreaming of catching up with her,is one of the few luxuries we have leftIncisive... Wiener shifts seamlessly from the intimate to the historical,often with humorA collective autobiography in a decolonial key; a settling of scores that is unafraid of self-criticism; a language that jolts and startlesGabriela Wiener is pure rebellion,humour and tenderness at the same time
Kommentar