This World Does Not Belong to Us

"One of the debut novels that most stood out this year in Latin America." --New York Times

Lucas was just a child when his father sold him to another farmer as a laborer. Years later, Lucas returns, full of resentment and burning for revenge.

After years away, Lucas returns uninvited to the home he was expelled from as a child. The garden has been conquered by weeds, which blanket his mother's beloved flowerbeds and his father's grave alike. A lot has changed since Eloy and Felisberto were invited into the family home to work for Lucas's father, long ago. The two hulking strangers have brought the land and everyone on it under their control--and removed nuisances like Lucas. Now everything rots. Lucas, a hardened young man, turns to a world that thrives in dirt and darkness: the world of insects. In raw, lyrical prose, García Freire portrays a world brought low by human greed, while hinting at glimmers of hope in the unlikeliest places.

Natalia García Freire was born in Cuenca, Ecuador, in 1991. She teaches Creative Writing at Azuay University and has also worked as a primary school teacher. García Freire's journalistic work has appeared in outlets such as BBC Mundo and Univisión, and her short story "Noche de fiesta" was published in the Spanish literary journal La gran belleza. This World Does Not Belong to Us is García Freire's debut novel. It was nominated for the Tigre Juan literary award and selected by the New York Times as one of the best Spanish-language books of 2019. It has been translated into Italian, French, and Turkish.

Victor Meadowcroft grew up at the foot of the Sintra Mountains in Portugal and translates from Portuguese and Spanish. His translations of works by María Fernanda Ampuero, Itamar Vieira Junior, and Murilo Rubião have appeared in the literary journals Latin American Literature Today and Mānoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing. On his blog, Onomatomania, he publishes interviews with authors, publishers, and translators. His cotranslation with Anne McLean of Stranger to the Moon by prizewinning Colombian author Evelio Rosero will be published in the summer of 2021.