Signs Preceding the End of the World

Yuri Herrera turns the migrant crossing into a mythic journey with a language that is his alone: invented, musical, with border echoes. Makina is not just a woman crossing the border; she is Persephone descending into the underworld. The brevity is part of the power: in a hundred and twenty pages there is more narrative matter than in entire trilogies. For those who think Latin American literature no longer surprises: Herrera reinvents it without fanfare.