Abyss

What Hay Cartagena Says: This is a strikingly vivid novel. Set in Cali, Colombia, the author takes us inside the mind of an eight-year-old girl whose depressed mother spends her days reading celebrity magazines, fixated on women who committed suicide. Quintana leads us brilliantly into the lonely heart of the child we have all once been, driven by fear of abandonment. It reminds us that children are capable of discerning extremely complex realities, even if they cannot fully understand them.

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Read More: Hay Festival Cartagena de Indias’ Latin American Reading List