Dorothy, a publishing project

“One of Mexico’s greatest living writers,” wrote Jonathan Lethem in 2018 about Cristina Rivera Garza, “we are just barely beginning to catch up to what she has to offer.” In the years since, Rivera Garza’s work has received widespread recognition: she was awarded a MacArthur “Genius” Grant for fiction that “interrogates culturally constructed notions of language, memory, and gender from a transnational perspective,” as well as the José Donoso Prize, and was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. Yet we have still only started to discover the full range of a writer who is at once an incisive voice on migration, borders, and violence against women, as well as a high stylist in the manner of Lispector or Duras.

New and Selected Stories brings together in English translation stories from across Rivera Garza’s career, drawing from three collections spanning over 30 years and including new writing not yet published in Spanish. It is a unique and remarkable body of work, and a window into the ever-evolving stylistic and thematic development of one of the boldest, most original, and affecting writers in the world today.

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Check out this conversation between Cristina Rivera Garza and translator Sarah Booker at Southwest Review, or these interviews with Cristina at Asymptote and Literary Hub.

Read Cristina’s story “The City of Men” (translated by Sarah Booker) over at BOMB Magazine.

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“This hypnotic, riveting collection of new and previously published stories from MacArthur Fellow Rivera Garza takes on love, migration, and violence. . . . These unsettling yet deeply approachable stories ought to earn Rivera Garza the wider attention she deserves.” Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Once you get used to the New and Selected Stories’ eerie strangeness, it’s hard to pick a favorite, or convince yourself to set the book down.” Lily Meyer, NPR.com

“The primary tension in Rivera Garza’s fiction—between the unruly intensities of sexual desire and the political disciplining of the body—is at its most concentrated in the latest translation of her work, New and Selected Stories. . . .The conceptual cunning of Rivera Garza’s stories cannot account for the passion that warms them.” Merve Emre, The New Yorker

“Cristina Rivera Garza’s New and Selected Stories offers English-language readers access to more than 30 years of intriguing writing by one of Mexico’s greatest contemporary authors.” Terry Hong, Shelf Awareness

“English-language readers finally have the chance to enter into the beguiling, menacing, and strangely poignant world that one of Mexico’s best writers creates through her short stories. . . . The consistently high quality of all the translations makes apparent not only the changes in Rivera Garza’s themes and style but also the way that the stories share an urgent search for meaning and connection.” Ryan Long, World Literature Today

“More writing from Cristina Rivera Garza is always a great gift. In this collection, New and Selected Stories, readers are able to track Rivera Garza’s writing over time, and realize that she has since the beginning been working in a lane entirely her own. Her concerns remain the same—she writes of gender, borders, immigration, loneliness, and identity in the most crystalline prose, translated here by the author herself, Sarah Booker, and others. It … will serve as the perfect introduction to her work for new readers, and an equally satisfying addition to her catalogue for existing fans. I devoured this book and can hardly wait to read more.” Meghana Kandlur, Seminary Co-op Bookstores

“Whenever I read Joy Williams, I find myself sinking into this strange, boggy, liminal world, where everything feels sharp and barbed and just so slightly off-kilter. It’s a bit how I imagine being hypnotized would feel, and I had a similar sensation reading the new collection from Cristina Rivera Garza (put out by Dorothy Project, arguably one of the coolest publishers out there). . . If you like this collection, check out Rivera Garza’s novel, The Taiga Syndrome, also out from Dorothy. So odd; so good.” Kelsey Ford, Powell’s.com

Praise for The Taiga Syndrome:

“Innovative Mexican author Rivera Garza’s dazzling speculative noir novel is narrated by a woman hired to find a man’s missing second wife. . . . As she tracks the mysterious couple over snow-covered trails in the boreal forest, the universe becomes eerie and unpredictable. She encounters a feral boy, a ferocious wolf, earthy villagers and wild lumberjacks. Rivera Garza invokes Hansel and Gretel as she spins her marvellous, atmospheric tale.” Jane Ciabattari, “The 10 Best Books of 2018” BBC.com

“This novel, in a translation by Levine and Kana, is taut, lyrical, and strange, and it fits right in with Dorothy, A Publishing Project’s commitment to work that challenges what genres and forms can do. Like the best speculative fiction, it follows the sinuous paths of its own logic but gives the reader plenty of room to play. Fans of fairy tales and detective stories, Kathryn Davis and Idra Novey, will all find something to love. An eerie, slippery gem of a book.” Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“As lyrical as a poem (‘Look at this: your knees. They are used for kneeling upon reality, also for crawling, terrified. You use them to sit on a lotus flower and say goodbye to the immensity’) and as fantastic as a fairy tale, Rivera Garza’s gorgeous, propulsive novel will haunt readers long after it’s finished.” Publishers Weekly, starred review

“A Lynchian noir from one of Mexico’s best novelists tracks a missing couple in a ravaged no-man’s-land, weaving a mystery out of fairy tales, disaster capitalism, and shadowy afflictions.” Vulture

“Readers of this book will encounter one of the most fiercely original literary voices from Latin America.” Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado, Los Angeles Review of Books

“This insanely creepy & brilliant book by the incomparable Cristina Rivera Garza will keep you awake at night. Garza is a master of atmosphere. A detective novel directed by David Lynch & narrated by Bolaño.” Mark Haber, Brazos Bookstore

“Wood, snow, blood: old stories. The witch in the forest, the breadcrumb trail, the grandmother-skinned wolf—everybody’s here, in this wild little book, breath steaming humid in the cold air.” Sarah McCarry, Tor.com

“Rivera Garza belongs to the tradition of iconoclastic writers who question why our world has to be the way it is. This is the sort of powerful inquiry that often brings art to its most immersive, rewarding, and generative place. Read her books and explore your own taiga.” Veronica Scott Esposito, Literary Hub

“Mystery, sci-fi, Socratic dialogue, retelling of ‘Hansel and Gretel’: The Taiga Syndrome is a delightful shape-shifter of a novel.” Jonathan Woollen, Politics & Prose