El hechizo del verano
Virginia Higa

NONFICTION | 2023 | 160 pages

Happiness can be found in an ice skating rink, no matter how many times you fall or how spectacular those falls may be. It can be found while making a snowman, or revisiting arguments in order to convince a Russian friend of how enthralling Jane Austen’s novels are, or in discovering the eroticism of the Olympics while trying to learn how to use a bow and arrow. “How wonderful it is to be among humans and not understand anything,” Virginia Higa affirms in the first paragraph, almost accidentally gifting us a code to use while reading this book that is full of impressions and marvels.

A few months before publishing Los sorrentinos, her critically acclaimed first novel, Virginia Higa moved to Stockholm, where she started a family and began writing these texts that combine essays and crónicas as a way of revealing what it’s like to live in a country with long nights and an abundance of vowels. A story about the friends she hosts in her Swedish home leads to a beautiful reflection about the meaning of hospitality. The process of raising a small child leads to the discovery of the limits of society, as well as unexpected alliances. Following the path of writers she admires like Hebe Uhart, Natalia Ginzburg, and Wisława Szymborska, Virginia Higa is able to linger on things that are both big and small and doesn’t differentiate between intellectual curiosity and sensible experiences.

El hechizo del verano is an invitation to open our eyes and allow ourselves to be charmed by the humor, intelligence, and enigmatic beauty of words and of good conversations.

RIGHTS: spanish SIGILO | swedish PROSAK FORLAG

BY VIRGINIA HIGA:

El hechizo del verano
NONFICTION, 2023
Los sorrentinos
NOVEL, 2018