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Learn moreWinner of the 2023 Soft Skull-Kimbilio Publishing Prize, a collection of short stories that elaborate the realities of a diasporic existence, split identities, and the beautiful potency of meaningful connections
Primarily told from the perspective of women and children in the Northeast who are tethered to fathers and families in Puerto Rico, these stories explore the confusion of being one person in two places—of having a mother who wants your father and his language to stay on his island but sends you there because you need to know your family. Loudly and joyfully filled with Cousins, Aunts, Grandparents, and budding romances, these stories are saturated in summer nostalgia, and place listeners at the center of the table to enjoy family traditions and holidays: the resplendent and universal language of survival for displaced or broken families.
Refusing to shy away from dysfunction, loss, obligation, or interrogating Black and Latinx heritages, Gautier's stories feature New York neighborhoods made of island nations living with seasonal and perpetual displacement. Like Justin Torres's We the Animals or Quiara Alegria Hudes's My Broken Language, it's the characters-in-becoming—flanked by family and rich with detail—that animate each story with special frequencies, especially for listeners grappling with split-identities themselves.
Amina Gautier is the author of four short story collections: At-Risk, Now We Will Be Happy, The Loss of All Lost Things, and The Best That You Can Do. Gautier is the recipient of the Blackwell Prize, the Chicago Public Library Foundation's 21st Century Award, the International Latino Book Award, the Flannery O'Connor Award, and the Phillis Wheatley Award in Fiction. For her body of work, she has received the PEN/MALAMUD Award for Excellence in the Short Story.
LaNecia Edmonds is a microbiologist and film actor turned audiobook narrator. She is from New England and has a multicultural background, including African American and Indigenous. LaNecia's favorite genres to narrate are fantasy, sci-fi, and romance, and she loves different dialects. When she's not narrating, you can find LaNecia spending time with family, taking care of her chickens, and practicing Taekwondo.
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