{"title":"Curbstone Press","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"amphibian","title":"Amphibian","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eExploring queerness, belonging, and the meaning of home through the lens of a Filipino American\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eHow does a queer brown body move through the American panorama? In \u003ci\u003eAmphibian\u003c\/i\u003e, Joseph O. Legaspi explores the metaphor of \"amphibious living\"—adapting, surviving, and flourishing in varying geographies—as it pertains to immigrants and to queerness. These poems draw on the natural world to illuminate personal experiences and, in turn, closely examine cultural, environmental, and societal constructs and concerns.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eLegaspi searches in nature for evidence of the validity of his own existence, determined to declare his belonging. Dwelling in landscape as a guide into the interior, \u003ci\u003eAmphibian\u003c\/i\u003e journeys not only between earth, water, and air, but also into the past, cataloging an immigrant's departures, arrivals, and returns to native soil. This moving collection is at every turn liberating, fraught, and altered.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57495478534517,"sku":"9798899480072","price":13.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9798899480072.jpg?v=1786618148"},{"product_id":"miracle-fever","title":"Miracle Fever","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePoetically delving into the spectacle and incredulity of a real-life religious controversy\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn the early 1990s, a small town in the Philippines became the epicenter of religious controversy when a teenager claimed to be visited by the Virgin Mary. News of these visions, broadcast over national media, would prompt over a million to flock to the town, hoping to catch a glimpse of the teenager and witness inexplicable events: a statue of the Virgin weeping blood, the sun dancing and throbbing into various fantastic colors, or a bevy of doves appearing overhead during Mass.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eMiracle Fever\u003c\/i\u003e, chronicling the life of this town, is a poetry sequence revolving around these apparitions. Documentary in its scrutiny and distortion of real-life events, novelistic in its plot trajectory, and lyric in its imagistic intensity, \u003ci\u003eMiracle Fever\u003c\/i\u003e offers a fabulist model of reality, built through poems delivered in the form of dramaticules, timelines, and photo captions. These fugitive presences, bearing out and unsettling the complex ethics of representation that the sequence cleaves to, foreground the element of spectacle surrounding the apparitions and bring new light to the ever-shifting antecedents bound by shared history.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57513484255605,"sku":"9798899480805","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9798899480805.jpg?v=1787220244"},{"product_id":"the-flowers-along-the-way","title":"The Flowers Along the Way","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePassionately demonstrating the dormant trauma of political violence and the redemption waiting beyond it\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFrom El Salvador's lush countryside to the streets of Oakland, California, a young mother wrestles with the intersecting forces of memory, history, and language in order to chart a new path for herself and her growing family. Fleeing political unrest and civil war violence in El Salvador, fourteen-year-old Claudia Castro Luna arrived in the United States with her family in 1981. Two decades later, holding her two-year-old and pregnant with her second child, she survives a public shooting by hiding behind shrubs in front of her house in Oakland. This event unleashes disorienting and traumatic memories, plunging her into a journey of discovery as she grapples with PTSD, recovers family stories, and begins to make sense of all that was torn asunder within her by the experiences of war and emigration. Beauty, longing, fear, and joy entwine in this powerful story of love, self-determination, and the search for home.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57513490055541,"sku":"9798899480928","price":20.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9798899480928.jpg?v=1787220251"},{"product_id":"the-book-of-mating","title":"The Book of Mating","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the Humanities in Translation Prize\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Book of Mating\u003c\/i\u003e is a masterfully translated collection of stories in which Indonesian women explore the full spectrum of mating: marital, sexual, and spiritual; forced and free; transcendent, ruinous, and mundane. Laksmi Pamuntjak portrays both the constraints and opportunities facing women caught between the enduring restrictions of local norms and hierarchies and the tantalizing promises of globalized modern life, between internalized myths and social realities.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAn experimental melding of Pamuntjak's creative, journalistic, and activist work, these stories read as urgent dispatches from the Indonesian archipelago and diaspora—and as universal narratives of women's lived experiences. Annie Tucker's nuanced translation takes us from the prison island of Buru and the Bogor Botanical Gardens to Paris's Left Bank, offering a polyphonic testament to the universal fight for women's autonomy over their bodies and their lives.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57513493397877,"sku":"9798899481048","price":20.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9798899481048.jpg?v=1787220254"},{"product_id":"repair-attempts","title":"Repair Attempts","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA poetic reckoning with personal, political, and historical wounds\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe titular \"repair attempts\" describes the words and actions people use to heal broken connections and de-escalate conflict. 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A chorus of repair attempts that toggle between the personal and political, this collection invites us into difficult territory where failure, wrongdoing, and shame require a collective reckoning and a collective effort to be better.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57536531300725,"sku":"9798899481079","price":13.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9798899481079.jpg?v=1788186529"},{"product_id":"hafa-adai","title":"Hafa Adai","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA tale of two sisters braving the current of global tremors, mysterious beings, and their own past\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAmihan is a respected and talented wildlife researcher on a small Pacific island in the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, where the land has undergone centuries of occupation. Offshore military testing, shifting climates, and tourists threaten the local ecosystem, making Amihan's job harder than ever. As she braves knotty forests and watery caves in search of the elusive rufous fantail, her expedition takes her to the suicide cliffs . . . and over them. Amihan plummets into another realm, a purgatory of colonial violence and Filipino folklore.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eLigaya, Amihan's sister, is back in Osaka and in between research positions when she is called to the island to search for her itinerant and reclusive sister. But when her search uncovers a stowaway, Ligaya's path takes an unexpected turn. Traveling along with her is a ghost with an omikuji tongue—a ghost that delights in spitting fortunes and mining memories. As Ligaya searches and Amihan wanders, it becomes clear that there is more to confront between these sisters than their whereabouts. 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Moving back and forth between Turkey and the United States, these stories trace migrations both physical and emotional: a nanny plots to flee the wealthy family she cares for in the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul; in Har Mar, a quiet mall tucked in the suburbs of Minneapolis; a bookseller escapes her grief in a complicated relationship with a wig retailer; an actress is hired by a famous American novelist to portray her at public events.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe women in \u003ci\u003eHar Mar \u003c\/i\u003edon't always make sound decisions, and they're not trying to be heroes. But they are reaching—imperfectly, but fiercely—for connection, truth, and home. With moving prose and a deep sense of longing, this collection explores what it means to grow up in the margins, to live in translation, and to build a life at the edge of belonging.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57629209231733,"sku":"9798899480522","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9798899480522.jpg?v=1791213197"},{"product_id":"brown-girls-grown-up","title":"Brown Girls, Grown Up","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA poignant and graceful story collection about the clash and harmony of finding one's place in an adult world that feels \"other\"\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eBrown Girls\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eGrown Up\u003c\/i\u003e shines a light on the nuances of modern womanhood with grace, honesty, and charm. The stories in Qadeer's debut collection delve into the subtleties and blatant struggles of navigating shifting identities as one matures, into the joys and challenges of intimacy and aging, and into the changing tides of motherhood. Middle-aged Amira takes radical action after meeting a new friend who lulls her into feeling safe and accepted; Hanna enrolls her biracial children in a local Sunday school after worrying they have no real connection to her Muslim heritage; betrayals and secrets come to light when a group of college friends reunite to take stock and compare achievements. Filled with humor and heartache, this collection offers a fresh and profoundly relatable perspective on the lifelong search for belonging in a world shaped by tradition, modernity, and individual ambition.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57680168780149,"sku":"9798899480324","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9798899480324.jpg?v=1792423332"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/publisher-curbstone-press.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}