Synopses & Reviews
From Pola Oloixarac, the critically acclaimed author of Savage Theories and Dark Constellations, comes Mona,
in which success as a "writer of color" proves to be a fresh hell for a
young Latin American woman at a literary conference in Sweden.
Mona, a Peruvian writer based in California, presents a tough and
sardonic exterior. She likes drugs and cigarettes, and when she learns
that she is something of an anthropological curiosity — a woman writer of
color treasured at her university for the flourish of rarefied
diversity she brings — she pokes fun at American academic culture and its
fixation on identity.
When she is nominated for "the most important literary award in
Europe," Mona sees a chance to escape her downward spiral of sunlit
substance abuse and erotic distraction, so she trades the temptations of
California for a small, gray village in Sweden, close to the Arctic
Circle. Now she is stuck in the company of all her jet-lagged — and
mostly male — competitors, arriving from Japan, France, Armenia, Iran,
and Colombia. Isolated as they are, the writers do what writers do:
exchange compliments, nurse envy and private resentments, stab rivals in
the back, and hop in bed together. All the while, Mona keeps stumbling
across the mysterious traces of a violence she cannot explain.
As her adventures in Scandinavia unfold, Mona finds that she has
not so much escaped her demons as locked herself up with them in the
middle of nowhere. In
Mona, Pola Oloixarac paints a hypnotic, scabrous, and ultimately
jaw-dropping portrait of a woman facing down a hipster elite to which
she does and does not belong. A survivor of both patronization and
bizarre sexual encounters, Mona is a new kind of feminist. But her past
won't stay past, and strange forces are working to deliver her the test
of a lifetime.
Review
"Pola Oloixarac's
Mona is, simultaneously, a hilarious satire of literary
pretensions, a sincere exploration of a damaged psyche, and a
brilliantly unnerving new chapter in this writer's inimitable body of
work. It reads as though Rachel Cusk's Outline Trilogy was thrown in a
blender with Roberto Bolaño's
2666, and then lightly seasoned with the bitter flavor of Horacio
Castellanos Moya. In other words: Oloixarac is one of my new favorite
writers." Andrew Martin, author of Cool for America
Review
"Sly, bitter, and smart,
Mona is at once a satirical comedy, a harrowing psychological
portrait of a woman's dissociation, and a philosophical indictment of
the hubris of now. Read it and be surprised." Siri Hustvedt, author of Memories of the Future
Review
"Smart, provocative . . . The rich inner life of its namesake character propels this vibrant examination of the writing world." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Both a wicked satire of the literary élite and an exploration of art
and violence . . . The novel is the kind that Mona imagines writing:
'terrifying, brilliant, and dangerous.'" The New Yorker
Review
"A rapturous tour de force by Pola Oloixarac--one of the few writers I cannot live without--
Mona is that novel that, once finished, leaves its reader
perfectly, beautifully undone. Part mystery, part send-up of a literary
world, part journey into night,
Mona reminds us that no matter how far you fly, the past is always near. If
Mona were any smarter, any funnier, any truer, I'm not sure my tender heart could have taken it." Junot Diaz, author of This is How You Lose Her
About the Author
Pola Oloixarac was born in Buenos Aires in 1977. Her debut novel,
Savage Theories, was a breakout bestseller in Argentina and was nominated for the Best Translated Book Award, and in 2010,
Granta recognized her as one of the best young Spanish-language
novelists. She was awarded the 2021 Eccles Centre & Hay Festival
Writer's Award. Oloixarac is a regular contributor to
The New York Times, and her fiction has appeared in
Granta,
n+1,
The White Review, and an issue of
Freeman's on "The Future of New Writing." Previously a resident of San Francisco, California, she currently resides in Barcelona.