{"title":"Books by Cristina Rivera Garza","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781039055971","title":"Five Manifestos for the Beautiful World","description":"\u003cb\u003eFive Alchemists. One book. A constellation of ideas.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe second annual Alchemy Lecture was presented in November 2023 at York University to a sold out in-person audience and nearly one thousand live online viewers. Moderated by Dr. Christina Sharpe, the Alchemists—agile thinkers and practitioners working across a range of disciplines and geographies—convened to discuss their radical visions of the beautiful world, and the manifestos that may help to guide us there. Their treatises have been captured and luminously expanded in the pages of this book.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCherokee Nation citizen and professor Joseph M. Pierce asserts that “[f]or this decolonial future to become possible, the guiding force must no longer be capital but relations.” Informed by her practice of “curation as care,” Brazilian film curator Janaína Oliveira evokes music and movement as a means toward this relationality: “it's almost by falling that you live. . . . The beautiful world dances the stumbles. The beautiful world dances dancing.” Kenyan-British visual artist Phoebe Boswell uses the space of a virtual gallery to ask, “If we burn down the institution, what happens next? Do we trust ourselves to know?” and gestures toward the possibility of this “as yet unlived, unexperienced thing.” Professor and MacArthur fellow Saidiya Hartman asks us to consider our capacity to burn, stating that “[P]ragmatism yields a profound tolerance of the unlivable.” And Mexican-American author Cristina Rivera Garza gives us the language of the future in the subjunctive, which “lays the groundwork for the irruption. . . . The subjunctive is the smuggler who crosses the border of the future bearing unknown cargo.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEach Alchemist is intimately concerned with the shape of this cargo and our ability to bear its weight, together. Through these expansive, transformative essays, new ways of being are threaded and proposed, illuminating our path towards this possible beautiful world.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44582898532530,"sku":"9781039055971","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781039055971_3126bb71-a745-4331-98b4-c777b17a2355.jpg?v=1786016846"},{"product_id":"9781526649430","title":"Death Takes Me","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES \u003c\/i\u003e100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2025\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eTIME \u003c\/i\u003eMOST ANTICIPATED BOOK FOR 2025\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘A labyrinthine masterpiece’ \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e‘A subversive twist on the traditional serial killer story’ \u003ci\u003eTIME\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘Obsessive, dreamlike and hallucinatory’ \u003cb\u003eLayla Martinez\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ebeware of me, my love\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ebeware of the silent woman in the desert…\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese are the words the Professor finds, scrawled in nail polish, above the mutilated corpse of a man.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe reports the crime to the police and becomes the first informant in an investigation led by the Detective, who has a newfound obsession with poetry. As the bodies of more men are discovered alongside cryptic lines of verse, it becomes clear that this is only one in a string of crimes – all connected, all with literary clues.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs the Professor becomes wrapped up in the murders, the boundaries of story – and of genre – break down. Can the Detective decipher the meaning of the poems in time to stop the spread of violence?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTranslated by Sarah Booker and Robin Myers\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":57685865103733,"sku":"9781526649454","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":54926404485493,"sku":"9781526649430","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781526649454.jpg?v=1792599082"},{"product_id":"9781911508687","title":"The Taiga Syndrome","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the 2019 Shirley Jackson Award\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA fairy tale run amok, \u003ci\u003eThe Taiga Syndrome\u003c\/i\u003e follows an unnamed Ex-Detective as she searches for a couple that has fled to the far reaches of the Earth. A betrayed husband is convinced by a brief telegram that his second ex-wife wants him to track her down – that she wants to be found. He hires the Ex-Detective, who sets out with a translator into a snowy, hostile forest where strange things happen and translation serves to betray both sense and the senses. The stories of \u003ci\u003eHansel and Gretel \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eLittle Red Riding Hood \u003c\/i\u003ehaunt the Ex-Detective’s quest. As she enters a territory overrun with the primitive excesses of capitalism – accumulation and expulsion, corruption and cruelty –the lessons of her journey unfold: that sometimes leaving everything behind is the only thing left to do.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56308924383605,"sku":"9781911508687","price":10.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781911508687_734dc0e1-b064-4061-87f2-990e03bcf663.jpg?v=1786034432"},{"product_id":"9781911508267","title":"The Iliac Crest","description":"\u003cp\u003eOn a dark and stormy night, an unnamed narrator is visited by two women: one a former lover, the other a stranger. They ruthlessly question their host and claim to know his greatest secret: that he is, in fact, a woman. In increasingly desperate attempts to defend his masculinity, perplexed by the stranger’s dubious claims to be the writer Amparo Dávila, he finds himself spiralling deeper into a haunted past that may or may not be his own.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis surreal novel enfolds a masterful exploration of gender in taut, atmospheric mystery.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56309111587189,"sku":"9781911508267","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781911508267_57c5b265-fd48-4ef0-9048-be5c90025ed1.jpg?v=1786028983"},{"product_id":"lilianas-invincible-summer","title":"Liliana's Invincible Summer","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR MEMOIR\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA 2023 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, TIME\u003c\/i\u003e AND \u003ci\u003eNEW YORKER\u003c\/i\u003e BOOK OF THE YEAR\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘Meticulously written and deeply moving . . . A triumph’ \u003cb\u003eJACKIE KAY\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘Absorbing and poetic’ \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eECONOMIST\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘Full of tenderness and beauty’ \u003cb\u003eMARIANA ENRIQUEZ\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom one of Mexico’s greatest contemporary writers, an \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eastonishing work of non-fiction that illuminates \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003ean epidemic of femicide in Mexico through the \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003edeath of one woman.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eI seek justice, I finally said. I seek justice for my sister . . . Sometimes it takes twenty-nine years to say it out loud, to say it out loud on a phone call with a lawyer at the General Attorney’s office: I seek justice.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the dawn of 16 July 1990, Liliana Rivera Garza, Cristina Rivera Garza’s sister, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend and subsumed into Mexico's dark and relentless history of femicide.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe was a twenty-year-old architecture student who had been trying for years to end her relationship with a high school boyfriend who insisted on not letting her go. A few weeks before the tragedy, Liliana made a definitive decision: at the height of her winter she had discovered that, as Albert Camus had said, there was an invincible summer in her. She would leave him behind. She would start a new life. She would do a master's degree and a doctorate; she would travel to London. But his decision was that she would not have a life without him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReturning to Mexico after decades of living in the United States, Cristina Rivera Garza collects and curates evidence – handwritten letters, police reports, school notebooks, voice recordings and architectural blueprints – to defy a pattern of increasingly normalised, gendered violence and understand the life lost. What she finds is Liliana: her sister’s voice crossing time and, like that of so many disappeared and outraged women in Mexico, demanding justice.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57484227543413,"sku":"9781526649355","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781526649355.jpg?v=1786266275"},{"product_id":"autobiography-of-cotton","title":"Autobiography of Cotton","description":"\u003cp\u003eDeeply personal and politically acute, in \u003cem\u003eAutobiography of Cotton\u003c\/em\u003e, Rivera Garza crafts a new kind of border novel that tells how a brittle land radically altered her grandparents’ lives and the territories they helped develop. In this intimate fictionalisation, Rivera Garza reveals a rich social history of agricultural colonisation, labour activism, environmental degradation and cross-border migration.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57492168540533,"sku":"9781916751637","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781916751637.jpg?v=1786528993"},{"product_id":"terrestrial-1","title":"Terrestrial","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFROM THE PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF \u003ci\u003eLILIANA'S INVINCIBLE SUMMER\u003c\/i\u003e AND \u003ci\u003eDEATH TAKES ME\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWe come from far away and, all of a sudden, we no longer know where we are going.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In \u003ci\u003eTerrestrial\u003c\/i\u003e, we follow travellers who carry little but longing and a sense of possibility. A woman returns to the town of a lover who once abandoned her, walking its streets listening for an echo. Two girls ride a train in search of a lake that may only exist in memory and myth. A group of workers build a temporary shelter, only to see it razed in an instant. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e These characters hitchhike, drift, wander, or at times, fly, to resist the forces that try to contain them. On dusty, sun-baked roads they remain close to the earth’s surface, sensing its tremors, its wounds, its wild promise and enduring beauty.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Blending memoir, reportage and fiction, Rivera Garza bends form into something elemental and new, reshaping the boundaries of writing as she tails these young travellers. \u003ci\u003eTerrestrial\u003c\/i\u003e is a fierce and tender meditation on what it means to move through the world as a woman, on the landscapes that mark us, and our ties to the earth we tread on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTranslated by Christina MacSweeney\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePRAISE FOR CRISTINA RIVERA GARZA:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'One of Mexico's greatest living writers' \u003c\/b\u003eJONATHAN LETHEM\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'An explosive writer ... with a powerful style, an evocative and indomitable language'\u003c\/b\u003e LINA MERUANE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A masterful storyteller'\u003c\/b\u003e JENNIFER CLEMENT\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57504843432309,"sku":"9781526697134","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781526697134.jpg?v=1786953761"},{"product_id":"de-blading-the-knife","title":"De-blading the Knife","description":"Rooted in Mexican and indigenous practices, De-blading theKnife is Pulitzer Prize winner Cristina Rivera Garza's profound meditation on the erasure of violence against women. Inspired by a walrus-ivory Story Knife from the Arctic region, De-blading theKnife creates a multi-faceted narration that asks: what is remembered? How? For whom? The ephemeral strokes of a Story Knife were traditionally drawn by young Yupik girls into soil or snow to repeat old tales that would then fade away. Mexican writer Cristina Rivera Garza connects this empowering ancient Indigenous practice to the “violentometro,” a contemporary tool designed in Mexico to measure instances of intimate partner violence. The story of violence against women constantly disappears even as it is continuously told and re-told, but perhaps a Story Knife may play a role in reversing such erasure.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57510153486709,"sku":"9783035809091","price":8.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-cristina-rivera-garza.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}