Two Lines Press joins the Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith(opens in a new tab) for a virtual event with authors Jazmina Barrera and Gabriela Wiener to discuss their books on pregnancy and motherhood, Linea Nigra(opens in a new tab) and Nine Moons(opens in a new tab). They will be in conversation with writer Rivka Galchen.
An intimate exploration of motherhood, Linea Nigra: An Essay on Pregnancy and Earthquakes by Jazmina Barrera and translated by Christina MacSweeney, approaches the worries and joys of childbearing from a diverse range of inspirations and traditions, from Louise Bourgeois to Ursula K. Le Guin to the indigenous Nahua model Luz Jiménez. Part memoir and part manifesto, Barrera’s singular insights, delivered in candid prose, clarify motherhood while also cherishing the mysteries of the body.
Writing through her first pregnancy, birthing, breastfeeding, and young motherhood, Barrera embraces the subject fully, making lucid connections between maternity, earthquakes, lunar eclipses, and creative labor. Inspired by the author’s own mother’s painting practice, Linea Nigra concludes with an impassioned call: childbearing is art, and art is childbearing.
And from the daring Peruvian essayist and provocateur Gabriela Wiener comes Nine Moons, translated by Jessica Powell, a fierce and funny exploration of sex, pregnancy, and motherhood that delves headlong into our fraught fascination with human reproduction. Wiener is not one to shy away from unpleasant truths or to balk at a challenge. So at 30, when she gets unexpectedly pregnant, she looks forward to the experience the way a mountain climber approaches a precipitous peak.
With a scientist’s curiosity and a libertine’s unbridled imagination, Wiener hungrily devours every scrap of information and misinformation she encounters during the nine months of her pregnancy. She ponders how pleasure and pain always have something to do with things entering or exiting your body. She laments that manuals for pregnant women don’t prepare you for ambushes of lust or that morning sickness is like waking up with a hangover and a guilty conscience all at once. And she tries to navigate the infinity of choices and demands a pregnant woman confronts, each one amplified into a life-and-death decision.
Jazmina Barrera’s books have been published in nine countries and translated to English, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, and French. Her book Cuerpo extraño (Foreign Body) was awarded the Latin American Voices prize by Literal Publishing, and On Lighthouses was chosen for the Indie Next list by IndieBound. Linea Nigra was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Autobiography Prize, CANIEM’s Book of the Year award, and the Amazon Primera Novela (First Novel) Award. She is editor and co-founder of Ediciones Antílope. She lives in Mexico City.
Gabriela Wiener is a Peruvian writer and journalist. Her books include Sexographies, translated by Lucy Greaves and Jennifer Adcock; Nine Moons, translated by Jessica Powell; Llamada perdida (Missed Call); Dicen de mí (What They Say About Me); and the book of poems Exercises for the Hardening of the Spirit. Her work has appeared in national and international anthologies and has been translated into English, Portuguese, Polish, French, and Italian. She was editor-in-chief of Marie Claire in Spain and now regularly publishes opinion columns in Eldiario.es, VICE, and the New York Times en Español, as well as a video column for lamula.pe. She won Peru’s National Journalism Award for an investigative report on a case of gender violence. She recently wrote and starred in the play Qué locura enamorarme yo de ti (How Crazy to Fall in Love with You), directed by Mariana de Althaus.
Rivka Galchen is the recipient of a William Saroyan International Prize for Fiction and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, among other distinctions. She writes regularly for The New Yorker, whose editors selected her for their list of 20 Under 40 American fiction writers in 2010. Her debut novel Atmospheric Disturbances (2008) and her story collection American Innovations were both New York Times Best Books of the Year. Her most recent book is Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch. She has received an MD from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Galchen lives in New York City.