Braided Memories / Memorias Trenzadas [English/Spanish bilingual edition]


Marjorie Agosín (poems)

Samuel Shats (photographs)

Alison Ridley (English translation)


“I felt a great deal of sorrow because of the horrors of Nazism and the loss of almost all of my family and one of the most vibrant Jewish communities in Europe. I felt grief for a usurped civilization and 

I understood the horror of the violence wreaked by the Nazis. I had trouble sleeping at night. 

I imagined the footfalls of the Nazis, and in my darkest nightmares I believed they would come for
me. I was scared as I moved about the city and saw where Hitler gave his speeches, and I dare to say that I felt the presence of all the ghosts of both the victims and the victimizers from that terrible time.”


In this evocative and emotional work, the poet, novelist, and human rights activist Marjorie Agosín pays homage to her great-grandmother, Helena Broder. As a young woman, Helena escaped Vienna to seek refuge in Chile, leaving shortly after the Night of Broken Glass in 1938 when the Nazi regime unleashed a campaign of violence, terror, and destruction against the Jewish population. 


This book takes readers on Marjorie’s journey through time and space, and across thresholds between life, death, and dreams, to discover Helena’s lost voice. This is not a linear journey, but one that braids together the past, the present, and the future, allowing Marjorie to give Helena, an exiled woman, a third home in the liminal space of memory and literature; a safe haven where she can be complete rather than fragmented, a place where her “exhausted suitcase” can finally rest. 


This touching collection of poems, in Marjorie Agosín’s native Spanish together with Alison Ridley’s delicate English translation, is enhanced by evocative images from the Chilean photographer Samuel Shats, as well as poignant memorabilia of Helena herself. 


——


En esta obra emotiva y sugerente, la poeta, novelista y activista de los derechos humanos Marjorie Agosín rinde homenaje a su bisabuela Helena Broder. En 1938 Helena escapó a Chile desde la ciudad de Viena después de la Noche de los Cristales, cuando el régimen nacionalsocialista desató una campaña de violencia, terror y destrucción contra la población judía. 


El libro lleva a los lectores en la travesía de Agosín por el tiempo y el espacio, cruzando los umbrales que separan la vida, la muerte y los sueños para descubrir la voz extraviada de Helena. No es una travesía lineal, pero una que entrelaza el pasado, el presente y el futuro permitiendo a Agosín devolver a Helena, una mujer exiliada, un tercer hogar en el espacio liminal de memoria y literatura, un santuario para que ella exista plenamente y no fragmentariamente, un lugar donde su “maleta exhausta” pueda finalmente descansar. 


La conmovedora colección de poemas en español, la lengua materna de Marjorie Agosín, junto a la delicada traducción al inglés de Alison Ridley es acompañada por imágenes evocativas del fotógrafo chileno Samuel Shats y la reproducción de recuerdos personales de la misma Helena.



244mm × 170mm; 238 pages; 80 color photos


Paperback 978-1-910146-38-5


Hardback 978-1-910146-39-2


Available at Amazon.com


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Link to title on Amazon.co.uk

© Solis Press

A virtual launch video is available here.


Sociocultural and historical anthropologist Dr. Mark Auslander reflects on Braided Memories here.