Sabrina y Corina / Sabrina & Corina: Stories

A haunting debut story collection on friendship, mothers and daughters, and the deep-rooted truths of our homelands, centered on Latinas of indigenous descent that shines a new light on the American West.
 
Kali Fajardo-Anstine's magnetic story collection breathes life into her Indigenous Latina characters and the land they inhabit. Set against the remarkable backdrop of Denver, Colorado--a place that is as fierce as it is exquisite--these women navigate the land the way they navigate their lives: with caution, grace, and quiet force.
 
In "Sugar Babies," ancestry and heritage are hidden inside the earth, but have the tendency to ascend during land disputes. "Any Further West" follows a sex worker and her daughter as they leave their ancestral home in southern Colorado only to find a foreign and hostile land in California. In "Tomi," a woman returns home from prison, finding herself in a gentrified city that is a shadow of the one she remembers from her childhood. And in the title story, "Sabrina & Corina," a Denver family falls into a cycle of violence against women, coming together only through ritual.
 
Sabrina & Corina is a moving narrative of unrelenting feminine power and an exploration of the universal experiences of abandonment, heritage, and an eternal sense of home.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • Latinas of Indigenous descent living in the American West take center stage in this haunting debut story collection—a powerful meditation on friendship, mothers and daughters, and the deep-rooted truths of our homelands.

“Here are stories that blaze like wildfires, with characters who made me laugh and broke my heart.”—Sandra Cisneros

WINNER OF THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARD • FINALIST FOR THE STORY PRIZE • FINALIST FOR THE PEN/ROBERT W. BINGHAM PRIZE FOR DEBUT SHORT STORY COLLECTION

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews • Library Journal

Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s magnetic story collection breathes life into her Latina characters of indigenous ancestry and the land they inhabit in the American West. Against the remarkable backdrop of Denver, Colorado—a place that is as fierce as it is exquisite—these women navigate the land the way they navigate their lives: with caution, grace, and quiet force.

In “Sugar Babies,” ancestry and heritage are hidden inside the earth but tend to rise during land disputes. “Any Further West” follows a sex worker and her daughter as they leave their ancestral home in southern Colorado only to find a foreign and hostile land in California. In “Tomi,” a woman leaves prison and finds herself in a gentrified city that is a shadow of the one she remembers from her childhood. And in the title story, “Sabrina & Corina,” a Denver family falls into a cycle of violence against women, coming together only through ritual.

Sabrina & Corina is a moving narrative of unrelenting feminine power and an exploration of the universal experiences of abandonment, heritage, and an eternal sense of home.

Kali Fajardo-Anstine es originaria de Denver, Colorado. Es autora de Sabrina y Corina, libro finalista del National Book Award, del PEN / Robert W. Bingham Prize, del LaVerne Harrell Fiction Prize, del Story Prize, del Saroyan Prize y ganador de un American Book Award. También fue galardonada con el Addison M. Metcalf Award por la American Academy of Arts and Letters. Su obra ha sido reconocida con el Denver Mayor's Global Award for Excellence in Arts & Culture y el Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association Reading the West Award. Ha escrito para el New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, ELLE, Oprah Daily, The American Scholar, Boston Review, entre otros, y ha recibido becas de MacDowell, Yaddo, Hedgebrook y Tin House. Recibió su MFA en la Universidad de Wyoming y trabajó más de una década como librera independiente en Westside Books, en el norte de Denver. Ha vivido por todo el país, desde Durnago, Colorado, hasta Key West, Florida, y fue invitada a impartir la 2022–23 Endowed Chair in Creative Writing en la Universidad Estatal de Texas.
 
Kali Fajardo-Anstine is from Denver, Colorado. Her fiction has appeared in The American Scholar, Boston Review, Bellevue Literary Review, The Idaho Review, Southwestern American Literature, and elsewhere. Kali has received fellowships from MacDowell Colony, the Corporation of Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and Hub City Press. She received her MFA from the University of Wyoming and has lived across the country, from Durango, Colorado, to Key West, Florida.