Undiscovered

Peruvian writer Wiener (Sexographies) plumbs the depths of her family history while exploring the legacy of colonialism in this incisive work of autofiction. The narrator, a self-described “chola” or dark-skinned Peruvian woman named Gabriela, lives in Spain in a queer polyamorous triad, and is proud of her nontraditional life. Then her beloved father dies, and she returns to Peru in mourning. There, she inquires into the lives of patriarchal figures further back in her family’s history, including her great-great-grandfather, the Austrian-French explorer Charles Wiener, who brought Indigenous artifacts back to Europe for display. As she researches her ancestor, she also learns about her father and his infidelities. Weiner shifts seamlessly from the intimate to the historical, often with humor (on Charles Wiener’s writings on Bolivia and Peru: “He is... without a doubt, the creator of the story’s hero: himself. Had he lived in the twenty-first century, he might have been accused of the worst possible crime an author can be accused of today: writing autofiction”). Weiner’s slim and affecting novel will whet readers’ appetites for more. Agent: María Lynch, Casanovas & Lynch. (Sept.)