#NuevasPaginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So give please spread the news so we can reach more readers and continue the love/support of Latine literature!
How does it work?!
Here’s the deal, I came up with a set of casual/random/fun questions to ask each Hispanic/Latinx/e author, I interview. If you are new here don’t forget to check out all the other amazing interviews! We also have a great line-up of guest authors coming up so make sure you don’t miss an issue by subscribing now!
A friendly reminder that I am an affiliate with Bookshop.org and I may earn a commission if you click through any book links and make a purchase.
Hey Heyyy Book Franz!
Another week, another author interview/spotlight! And you can expect that they will keep coming because I tweeted the following and my inbox is currently flooded with amazing Latine-authored books.
How freaking exciting is that? Thank you for being here and reading the newsletter. If you know of a Latine author you’d like to see spotlighted in Nuevas Paginas, let them know my email is open, and also, share this space with all your friends and family so we can keep growing and amplifying Latine books!
Before we jump into today’s interview, I realize I don’t have a “What are you reading this week?” section - so let’s do that! I’ll add every week, what I am currently reading and you can tell me about what you currently reading too.
What is Lupita reading this week?
I currently have three books in rotation and before you ask yourself “how?! that’s so many”, it helps that all three are in different formats.
The physical book I am reading is Soledad by Angie Cruz, which I am loving so much! I have to give credit to my wife for influencing me to read it. She’s a huge Angie Cruz fan and read through all the books she has written. We’ll be launching a mini-podcast episode of all things Angie Cruz for my paid bookish subscribers as soon as I am done reading Soledad. I’m about 100 pages from finishing it.
On Kindle, I decided to start reading Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H because I got stuck in the dark in my kid’s room waiting for him to fall asleep. This one came at the recommendation of my friend Traci from The Stacks Podcast. She texted while reading it and said I had to read it. I will always listen to Traci when it comes to a nonfiction book rec! It's living up to the hype and I'm only 20 pages in. Also,
Roxane Gay's Book Club is reading it!The audiobook I am currently listening to when I go on my daily walks is It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle by Mark Wolynn. This is probably the fourth book I’ve read about the impact of trauma on the body and mental health, this year. I might have to write a post for you all about those books.
For #LupitasBookClub Besties:
The discussion thread for When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Asghar is finally LIVE (everyone clap for me please)! Head over with your thoughts if you read with us.
If not, our next book pick is….THE CONSEQUENCES by Manuel Muñoz. So make sure you grab a copy of the book and we’ll start our reading Monday, March 20th!
Without further ado, our very special guest author for today’s Nuevas Pagina issue is……Gerardo Sámano Córdova author of Monstrilio!
Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?
I’m on the floor of my room, a few feet away is my computer, a computer I bought with the excuse of writing more. It was that buyer’s guilt that did make commit to writing more. I finished short stories which led me to an MFA and, a few years later, to the completion of Monstrilio. All in the lifespan of that one computer. My computer, within its CPU traveling throughout many places, is really where my writing has found a steady home.
Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book.
Frankenstein lives in a dark corner of my mind—Frankenstein’s monster, in specific, and his yearning for love. The stories of Julio Cortázar, Juan Rulfo, Jorge Luis Borges, Carlos Fuentes, and Juan José Arreola. Mariana Enriquez’s amazingly creepy tales, Samanta Schweblin’s crisp and intense familial horrors, Kelly Link, Yuri Herrera, Carmen Maria Machado.
What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?
Hard to pick just two, but I would say the first one would be Love—its limits, its nuances, and joy. Second is Queerness. These two are intimately connected in the way that as queer people we (or at least I) often question the love we receive (do I deserve it? Have I earned it?), constantly wondering at what point that love might break, if we might lose it. I wanted to test love inside a family.
If a book was home, where would your home be?
A home where depending on my mood and desire I could come out the front door into Mexico City, Berlin or Brooklyn.
If your book was a famous musician who would it be?
Sigur Rós. The ethereal, wonderfully bizarre sound of their music and voice lives in that awesome interstitial place between fantasy and reality.
What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?
Taquitos al pastor with fresh jamaica water.
In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?
Growing up and reading mostly fiction from Latin American countries, I believed that, for literature to be literature, it had to have fantastical elements in it; it had to be uncanny. (It was only later that I learned that there was such a distinction as “realism.”) The magic and uncanniness of the fiction I grew up with was what made me want to be a writer. And as my writing and I develop, I understand more and more the importance of imagination as a tool to imagine our humanity surviving in the face of forces that try hard to dehumanize us.
Where can readers keep up with your work?
Follow me on Twitter and Instagram @samanito
Thank you to Gerardo for taking the time to chat with me about his book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) #SupportLatinxLit!
Gerardo Sámano Córdova is a writer and artist from Mexico City, where he currently resides. He holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of Michigan. He has studied with Alexander Chee at Bread Loaf as a work/study scholar, and with Garth Greenwell at Tin House. His work has appeared in Ninth Letter, Passages North, and Chicago Quarterly Review, and is forthcoming in The Common.
Synopsis for Monstrilio from the Bookshop website:
A "genuinely scary" horror debut written in "prose so beautiful you won't want to rush" about a boy who transforms into a monster, a monster who tries to be a man, and the people who love him in every form he takes (Ana Reyes, author of The House in the Pines)
Grieving mother Magos cuts out a piece of her deceased eleven-year-old son Santiago's lung. Acting on fierce maternal instinct and the dubious logic of an old folktale, she nurtures the lung until it gains sentience, growing into the carnivorous little Monstrilio she keeps hidden within the walls of her family's decaying Mexico City estate. Eventually, Monstrilio begins to resemble the Santiago he once was, but his innate impulses--though curbed by his biological and chosen family's communal care--threaten to destroy this fragile second chance at life.
A thought-provoking meditation on grief, acceptance, and the monstrous sides of love and loyalty, Gerardo Sámano Córdova blends bold imagination and evocative prose with deep emotional rigor. Told in four acts that span the globe from Brooklyn to Berlin, Monstrilio offers, with uncanny clarity, a cathartic and precise portrait of being human.