

They travel to Houston and send wages back to Elena’s mother, all the while weighing whether to risk overstaying their tourist visas or to return to Bogotá. Once their first daughter is born, and facing grim economic prospects, they set their sights on the United States. Elena and Mauro are teenagers when they meet, their blooming love an antidote to the mounting brutality of life in Bogotá.


For readers of Valeria Luiselli and Edwidge Danticat, an urgent and lyrical novel about a Colombian family fractured by deportation, offering an intimate perspective on an experience that so many have endured-and are enduring right now.Īt the dawn of the new millennium, Colombia is a country devastated by half a century of violence.
