{"product_id":"mona-9781250829573","title":"Mona","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003ePola Oloixarac, \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e the critically acclaimed author of \u003ci\u003eSavage Theories \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eDark Constellations\u003c\/i\u003e, comes \u003ci\u003eMona\u003c\/i\u003e, in which success as a \"writer of color\" proves to be a fresh hell for a young Latin American woman at a literary conference in Sweden.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMona, a Peruvian writer based in California, presents a tough and sardonic exterior. She likes drugs and cigarettes, and when she learns that she is something of an anthropological curiosity--a woman writer of color treasured at her university for the flourish of rarefied diversity she brings--she pokes fun at American academic culture and its fixation on identity. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhen she is nominated for \"the most important literary award in Europe,\" Mona sees a chance to escape her downward spiral of sunlit substance abuse and erotic distraction, so she trades the temptations of California for a small, gray village in Sweden, close to the Arctic Circle. Now she is stuck in the company of all her jet-lagged--and mostly male--competitors, arriving from Japan, France, Armenia, Iran, and Colombia. Isolated as they are, the writers do what writers do: exchange compliments, nurse envy and private resentments, stab rivals in the back, and hop in bed together. All the while, Mona keeps stumbling across the mysterious traces of a violence she cannot explain. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAs her adventures in Scandinavia unfold, Mona finds that she has not so much escaped her demons as locked herself up with them in the middle of nowhere. In \u003ci\u003eMona\u003c\/i\u003e, Pola Oloixarac paints a hypnotic, scabrous, and ultimately jaw-dropping portrait of a woman facing down a hipster elite to which she does and does not belong. A survivor of both patronization and bizarre sexual encounters, Mona is a new kind of feminist. But her past won't stay past, and strange forces are working to deliver her the test of a lifetime.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Picador USA\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/15\/2022\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781250829573\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 192","brand":"Pola Oloixarac","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41574410256565,"sku":"9781250829573","price":15.3,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_524d42d0-a40d-44cf-a41e-b2e38ce87b77.jpg?v=1643693851","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/mona-9781250829573","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}