“The Ghost of You” by Margarita Saona: Release Date 03/2023
Margarita Saona’s sparse, clinically precise yet mysterious prose casts a
spell upon her readers. Nothing says post-anthropocentric like Saona’s
stories. Her characters, resisting gender and other labels inhabit cities
that while existing in the real world, refuse to be pinned down on a map.
In Saona’s stories, animals behave like humans, humans, like animals, or
the elements, in a relentless phantasmagoria reminiscent of ancient mythology. This disembodiment is present in Saona’s narrative style, having
herself hovered between life and death shortly before receiving a life-saving new heart. The English translation, The Ghost of You, originally titled
in Spanish La ciudad donde no estás, gives these ghosts an English-speaking
home, in the hopes they can remain in the memory of their readers the
same way someone’s presence stills haunts a place.