Voyager: Constellations of Memory by Nona Fernandez. Minneapolis. 2023. Graywolf Press. 9781644452172. Translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer. 112 pages. paperback. Cover design: Kapo Ng. Translation of: Voyager (mapa de las lenguas).
DESCRIPTION - A startling book-length essay, at once grand and intimate, from National Book Award finalist Nona Fernández. Voyager begins with Nona Fernández accompanying her elderly mother to the doctor to seek an explanation for her frequent falls and inability to remember what preceded them. As the author stares at the image of her mother’s brain scan, it occurs to her that the electrical signals shown on the screen resemble the night sky. Inspired by the mission of the Voyager spacecrafts, Fernández begins a process of observation and documentation. She describes a recent trip to the remote Atacama desert―one of the world’s best spots for astronomical observation―to join people who, like her, hope to dispel the mythologized history of Chile’s new democracy. Weaving together the story of her mother’s illness with story of her country and of the cosmos itself, Fernández braids astronomy and astrology, neuroscience and memory, family history and national history into this brief but intensely imagined autobiographical essay. Scrutinizing the mechanisms of personal, civic, and stellar memory, she insists on preserving the truth of what we’ve seen and experienced, and finding ways to recover what people and countries often prefer to forget. In Voyager, Fernández finds a new container for her profound and surreal reckonings with the past. One of the great chroniclers of our day, she has written a rich and resonant book.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Patricia Paola Fernández Silanes (born 23 June 1971), better known as Nona Fernández, is a Chilean actress, author, and screenwriter. She is a recipient of the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize, and the Altazor prize (on many occasions). An only child of a single mother, Nona Fernández grew up in a Matta Avenue neighborhood close to the market Persa Bíobío. There she had her first job, selling second-hand clothes. Even though her name is the same as her mother's, Patricia Paola, everyone calls her Nona, the name by which she also signs her works. When she was just starting to walk, she used to talk little, hardly saying anything. All she could say was 'no'. Turning this negative into her child's pet word earned her the peculiar nickname "Nonito" among her family. When she got older, the nickname became Nona. She attended Santa Cruz School in Santiago and later the Catholic University Theater School. Later, as an actress, she founded the company Merri Melodys, participated in productions of many theatrical works, and won a competition of the Centro Chileno-Norteamericano de Cultura as the best actress. Natasha Wimmer is a translator who has worked on Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, for which she was awarded the PEN Translation prize in 2009, and The Savage Detectives. She lives in New York.
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