In Lotería, the spellbinding literary debut by Mario Alberto Zambrano, a young girl tells the story of her family’s tragic demise using a deck of cards of the eponymous Latin American game of chance.
With her older sister Estrella in the ICU and her father in jail, eleven-year-old Luz Castillo has been taken into the custody of the state. Alone in her room, she retreats behind a wall of silence, writing in her journal and shuffling through a deck of lotería cards. Each of the cards’ colorful images—mermaids, bottles, spiders, death, and stars—sparks a random memory.
Pieced together, these snapshots bring into focus the joy and pain of the young girl’s life, and the events that led to her present situation. But just as the story becomes clear, a breathtaking twist changes everything.
Beautiful full-color images of lotería cards are featured throughout this intricate and haunting novel.
Heres perhaps the big-news debut of this group, with a 75,000-copy first printing and a nice publicity push. Former professional ballet dancer Zambrano (e.g., Nederlands Dans Theater) has protagonist Luz Castillo use loteria, the Mexican version of bingo, to tell the story of her life. With her father in jail and her sister hospitalized, 11-year-old Luz is in state custody and refusing to speak. But as she writes in her journal, she sifts through the vivid loteria cards (featuring mermaids, stars, and spiders, for instance) and uses them for inspiration. A very good bet.
In Loter a, the spellbinding literary debut by Mario Alberto Zambrano, a young girl tells the story of her family's tragic demise using a deck of cards of the eponymous Latin American game of chance.
With her older sister Estrella in the ICU and her father in jail, eleven-year-old Luz Castillo has been taken into the custody of the state. Alone in her room, she retreats behind a wall of silence, writing in her journal and shuffling through a deck of loter a cards. Each of the cards' colorful images--mermaids, bottles, spiders, death, and stars--sparks a random memory.
Pieced together, these snapshots bring into focus the joy and pain of the young girl's life, and the events that led to her present situation. But just as the story becomes clear, a breathtaking twist changes everything.
Beautiful full-color images of loter a cards are featured throughout this intricate and haunting novel.