Eating Ashes

Reviews

"A rising star of Latin American literature has written a novel that refuses to reduce grief to a scheduled tour through ennobling sorrows. Brenda Navarro dispenses with fairy tales about acceptance and considers mourning as a kind of backbreaking labor, like childcare or housecleaning. Unlike peddlers of platitudes, Navarro is a major talent who knows that the most important stages of grief are ambivalence and guilt." — Nicolás Medina Mora, New York Times

"Eating Ashes hit me in the most profound way. With her trademark powerful prose, Brenda Navarro brilliantly tells a haunting, tragic story of siblings far from home, and the result is devastating. A moving take on migration, racism, and inequality that is as pertinent as ever." — Diego Luna, actor and director

"Avoiding melodrama, Navarro writes in a matter-of-fact tone, using short, clipped sentences suited to the wretchedness of her subject. This is a book that treats its characters and incidents seriously and—at its best—ruthlessly." — New Yorker

"While Navarro is broadly interested in themes of immigration and the colonial legacy, the novel is firmly rooted in the specific, palpable lives of her characters, which she renders with nuance and honesty.... A sensitive portrayal of sibling love, grief, and the trauma of dislocation." — Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Empathetic, almost humanist intent ...Brenda Navarro’s second novel, Ceniza en la boca, has all of the above elements lurking in the background. However, the book considers them through the eyes of those who have grown so desperate to escape the cycle of violence that they leave their home and, at least temporarily, their family in search of a happier, safer, more prosperous life. McDowell’s translation is characteristically excellent throughout." — Cory Oldweiler, Los Angeles Review of Books

"Raw, ingenious, and addictive." — El País

"[A] masterpiece." — El Mundo

"McDowell's translation is lyrical and powerful... [Eating Ashes] is a vivid, visceral, and impactful novel." — Sara Martinez, Booklist

"Brenda Navarro, one of Mexico’s most brilliant new writers, Eating Ashes, transfigures trauma into a web of meaning, taking a nonlinear path throug the unnamed narrator’s memories as she tries to make sense of her brother Diego’s suicide. g. Just as the narrator eats her brother’s ashes, so too does Navarro eat the words of Vampire Weekend, translating them into Spanish, only for them to be translated back into English by Megan McDowell in a rich intertextual game of telephone. This wise, deeply felt work delves into profound grief and emerges with meaning." — Eric A. Ponce, BookPage

"Navarro crafts a realistic depiction of memory’s free association, as her narrator bounces like a pinball from one idea to the next. This sorrowful novel teems with life." — Publishers Weekly

"In this commentary on memory and migration, Navarro also plumbs the depths of grief with visceral intensity." — Frieze

"Navarro confronts the intimate and systemic struggles that migrants face and asks what it means to live a life worth living in this novel about alienation and courage." — Electric Literature

"This lovingly written story centers on an unnamed narrator traveling from Spain to her home in Mexico to deliver her brother’s ashes. Introspective and reflective, Eating Ashes is a candid and stark exploration into loss, grief and familial relationships." — Karla J. Strand, Ms. Magazine

"In Navarro’s capable hands, Eating Ashes is far from didactic. Instead, the book reads like a stunned stream of consciousness, flitting back and forth between the past and the present. These are not chapters, per se; they’re dazed meditations... Eating Ashes breaks our hearts, but doesn’t put them back together again. It does, however, carefully cradle the pieces." — Laura Zornosa, 1 Minute Critic

"A brilliant new voice, eviscerating and propulsive." — Miriam Toews, author of Women Talking

"One of the best-kept secrets of Mexican literature." — Fernanda Melchor, author of the International Booker Prize–shortlisted Hurricane Season

"An author who knows that behind all affection lies hidden danger." — Yuri Herrera, author of Signs Preceding the End of the World

"A tender story about how our families and places of origin, shape and warp and rattle us yet still resist comprehension. Brenda Navarro writes with wide open eyes and a relentless desire to understand." — Catherine Lacey, author of Biography of X