The Volcano Daughters

Balibrera’s wrenching debut follows sisters Consuelo and Graciela after they’re displaced by a massacre in El Salvador. As little girls in 1914, they’re raised by their Indigenous mother, Socorrito, who labors on a coffee finca and was pursued by the girls’ biological father, Germán, the second most powerful man on the finca, because of her light skin. When Consuelo is four, Germán takes her from Socorrito and brings her home to his wife, Perlita, who is barren. After Germán dies in 1923, Perlita steals the younger Graciela and gives Consuelo to the country’s dictator, a former general known by his many detractors as El Gran Pendejo, as part of a complex plot to curry favor with him. In the 1930s, when El Gran Pendejo launches a genocidal campaign against the young women’s Indigenous community, they both flee the country. Consuelo, an aspiring artist, pursues her career in San Francisco and France, while Graciela, an actor, stars in degrading Spanish-language films in Hollywood. With keen psychological insight, Balibrera portrays how the women, each of whom doesn’t know the other has survived, make hard choices in search of fulfillment. It adds up to a powerful story of finding the strength to chart one’s own course. (Aug.)