Ischia (Paperback or Softback)

Ischia is a portrait of an unnamed narrator and her friends: wandering through the margins of different cities, especially Buenos Aires, they search for purpose in an increasingly uncertain world.

An intricate, gutsy, and raw novel, Ischia is populated with outsiders who navigate the vicissitudes of life in Argentina and the world. Ischia, the female narrator, is the youngest in a family of seven brothers and relates her experiences as she waits for a ride to the airport. Told through dizzying would-have, could-have conditionals, Ischia overlaps and blurs the past, present, and future of three young characters defined by lack of certainty or expectation.

These three lives unfold between disenchantment and humor, and the narration transports readers into a world of memories, desires, and dreams. The novel advances lyrically through themes both solemn and lighthearted, shaping the contours of imagined, hilarious, and surreal experiences.

Gisela Heffes is a Professor of Latin American Literature and Culture as well as a writer, ecocritic, and public intellectual with a particular focus on literature, media, and the environment in Latin America. She is the author of the novella Sophie La Belle (2016), the novel Cocodrilos en la noche (2020), and the bilingual poetry collection El cero móvil de su boca / The Zero Mobile of Its Mouth (2020). She currently resides in Houston, Texas.

Grady C. Wray teaches Latin American literature, Spanish, and Translation at the University of Oklahoma. He published the first bilingual critical edition of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz' Devotional Exercises. His translations of fiction and poetry include The Mobile Zero of Its Mouth by Gisela Heffes (Katakana editores, 2020), 2323 Stratford Ave. by Marcelo Rioseco (Valparaiso Editions USA, 2020), and Series 201 by Luisa Valenzuela (2017).