Magical Realism for Non-Believers
A Memoir of Finding Family
Finalist: Minnesota Book Award
Winner: City Pages | Best of 2020
Magical Realism for Non-Believers: A Memoir of Finding Family
University of Minnesota Press, 2019
In 1995, Anika Fajardo flew to Colombia to discover a birthplace that was foreign to her and a father who was a stranger. Vivid and heartfelt in the telling, Fajardo’s story is powerfully compelling in its bridging of time and place and in its moving depiction of self-transformation. Family, she comes to find, is where you find it and what you make of it.
Recommended by:
Book Riot | BuzzFeed | Bustle | Ms. Magazine | The Rumpus | Star Tribune
“A lovely and thoughtful story, brimming with the author’s conjectures on the family that might have been, and her wonder at the family that is”
“Compelling memoir examines family relationships, memory and identity”
“The language is rich, painting a delicate setting of place and characters that we get to know at the same time as our author, an almost coming-of-age story centered on the difficulties of split cultures.”
“Incredibly well written and compelling, Anika Fajardo’s Magical Realism for Non-Believers is a remarkable memoir about the search for a father, a culture, a self.”
“Fajardo’s existence becomes ever richer and fuller as her narrative and life grow, reality filled in magically with details and people”
“In lyrical writing with vivid sensory details, Fajardo deftly explores how generations and geography influence one another.”
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