Gabriela Wiener

I am generally not a fan of autofiction, I usually find it insufferable. If anything works as autofiction, though, it is Wiener's look at the man who her family has long claimed to be her great-great-grandfather, Jewish Austrian-French colonial explorer/collector Carl/Charles Wiener. Is he though? Does it really matter if he is, since she has been raised on this dichotomy of being a brown Peruvian woman descended from a man who would have thought her "other"? She also recognizes and acknowledges (p104-106) the similarities of him making up stories or stealing the work/ideas/heritage of others to gain his own acceptance in France. As his possibly gggrandaughter writes autofiction and tells all about her romantic relationships and even her children. What's true? What's false? What has she made up vs what she might think true but is false?

And what do her husband, wife, and kids think of being shared with the world in this way? The youngest is probably too young to understand--I was hoping that maybe the children were true fiction, but there are pictures online. This just makes me feel so uncomfortable for these kids.… (altro)

Gabriela Wiener's Undiscovered reflects on issues of indigenous identity, colonialism, colorism, and gender norms. This might make Undiscovered sound polemical—and in a way it is—but these are polemics of identity, of nailing down a specific set of intersectionalities and exploring the ways they interrelate. Among other genres, Wiener writes autobiographical, reflective essays. The subtitle of this book, "a Novel," implies that we're reading fiction, but the personal, emphatic voice leaves readers wondering.

Undiscovered opens with reflections on her great-great grandfather, Charles Wiener, a 19th Century explorer of Peru, who was responsible for taking thousands of pre-Columbian artifacts from Peru to France. By today's standards, these acquisitions are proof of imperialist egoism and a lack of scientific rigor. Many of these objects remain unlabeled; details about their origin and context are missing. Charles Wiener describes them and the culture from which they come in paternalistic fashion.

Beginning with her great-great grandfather, Weiner explores her family and personal identity. She was born in Peru to what could be called a distaff line of the family. She's named Wiener, but she's more certain of her relationship to the Peruvian woman from whom her father and great grandfather descend, rather than the man whose last name she bears. This is where the issues is indigenous identity, colonialism, and colorism come in. As an adult, Wiener is a dark-skinned Peruvian-born woman living in Spain—where dark skin and Latin American origins lead others to assume certain things. That's she's a housekeeper, for example.

In Spain, Wiener is part of a "thruple," a marriage of three people, in this case Wiener, her Spanish husband and her wife, who is white. This is where the issue of gender norms come in, since they presume two-unit, male/female pairings. But the ways in which her marriage breaks with some norms leave other norms intact, so when she engages in an affair while settling the estate of her father in Peru, she finds herself consumed by her knowledge that she has betrayed the triad and that she doesn't know what the repercussions of that choice will be.

Undiscovered covers a broad range of topics. The movement among these feels abrupt sometimes. What connects them is Wiener's existence, but that "I Am" isn't sufficient as a narrative arc for a novel. Even for an autobiography, one could hope of a bit more. Still, the topics Wiener raises are interesting and her explorations have an integrity that straddles the fiction-autobiography boundary. Come to this book with a willingness to think about identity in historical, global, and gender terms. If you do that, you'll enjoy the sometimes bumpy ride Undiscovered offers.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.… (altro)

Antes de empezar a leer 'Huaco retrato', la nueva novela de Gabriela Wiener, como una semana antes, ya estaba completamente obsesionado por el título del libro, que repetía en voz alta por casa, mientras hacía las cosas que uno suele hacer en casa: colocar los vasos después de lavarlos, cocinar, darse una ducha, mirar al techo al despertar...

Era como si la peculiar sonoridad de las dos palabras que formaban ese título, que se acrecentaba al juntarlas, se hubiera hecho fuerte en una parte de mi mente y obligara a mi voz a repetirlas una y otra vez para que consiguiera de una vez un ejemplar y leyera. Un poco como esa violentísima estrategia infantil de preguntar "¿Puedo mamá? ¿Puedo mamá? ¿Puedo mamá?", hasta que la madre accede a lo que sea para acabar con la tortura. En mi caso, sin embargo, había una diferencia fundamental.

"Huaco retrato, huaco retrato, huaco retrato", repetía yo, lentamente. Pronunciando cada una de las sílabas con creciente placer, quizá todavía mayor por no tener ni idea de qué era un huaco retrato.

Es como si la obsesión hubiera precedido a la lectura del libro pero, tras su lectura, en una vorágine que apenas duró unas horas, allí seguía, intacta, transformada en algo más profundo y lleno de recovecos que se correspondían con los del propio libro que maneja temas tan profundos como la muerte, el colonialismo y el expolio de los “exploradores” occidentales, el peso del pasado, el poliamor y sus complejidades, el racismo, el sexo de los padres o la maternidad. Gabriela se desliza y se sumerge en todos esos temas con la destreza de quien domina su oficio.

A veces, los libros son demasiado grandes para los temas que tratan, otras veces, demasiado pequeños. Gabriela condensa un mundo en 176 páginas y construidas con frases como "Cuánto desamor podemos dar mientras creemos estar amando", a partir de las cuales podría construirse toda una carrera literaria.… (altro)

Ordered this from Restless Books because the description was intriguing, and I was looking to read more Latin American authors. It is a ridiculous and unintended coincidence that this was the 69th book I read this year.

This was a fascinating collection of essays from an intriguing author. The essay topics were varied but most touched on sex and gender -- but there is also the prison system, immigration and identity, contemplation of death, and parenting. It's hard to identify stand-outs because I feel like I'd be listing most of the essays. I did wish sometimes for a little more context -- a foreword or afterword with a little biographical info to connect the spaces in between the essays (most of which were incredibly personal) and for some information about the publications she wrote for -- the way some of her more "scandalous" pieces were received.

I loved the honesty and vulnerability in her writing, the strength of her voice, her openness to new ideas, experiences, viewpoints. I would love to learn more about Wiener and read more of her writing.… (altro)