Gabriela Alemán, based in Quito, Ecuador, has played professional basketball in Switzerland and Paraguay and has worked as a waitress, administrator, translator, radio scriptwriter, and film studies professor. She received a PhD at Tulane University and holds a Master's degree in Latin American Literature from Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar. Her literary honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006; member of Bogotá 39, a 2007 selection of the most important up-and-coming writers in Latin America in the post-Boom generation; one of five finalists for the 2015 Premio Hispanoamericano de Cuento Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia) for her story collection La muerte silba un blues; and winner of several prizes for critical essays on literature and film. Her other books include the short story collections, Maldito corazón, Zoom, Fuga permanente, and Álbum de familia; her novels in Spanish include Body Time, Poso Wells, and Humo. Her stories have appeared in anthologies in French, English, Chinese, Hebrew, and Serbo-Croatian. This is her first full-length work to appear in English.

Part One: The Cooperative of Poso Wells

I. The Candidate

II. Yesterday's Papers

III. The Hole

IV. The Scar

V. Waiting Forever for You

VI. Óracle Pinche Güey

VII. A Mass for the Dead

VIII. The Spur

Part Two: Amazonas and Naciones Unidas

IX. Press Conference

X. Minefields Express

XI. The Bottom of the Empty Glass

Part Three: The Cloud Forest

XII. Checkmate

XIII. The Prosecutor

XIV. The Sovereign People

XV. Without You …