Loteria by Mario Alberto Zambrano

Loteria by Mario Alberto Zambrano

"A taut, fraught, look at tragedy, its aftermath, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive. With suspense, dread, and always the possibility for redemption, we watch as Zambrano flips the cards of chance and fate." -- Justin Torres, author of We The Animals

In Lotería, the spellbinding literary debut by Mario Alberto Zambrano, a young girl tells the story of her family's tragic demise using a deck of cards of the eponymous Latin American game of chance.

 

With her older sister Estrella in the ICU and her father in jail, eleven-year-old Luz Castillo has been taken into the custody of the state. Alone in her room, she retreats behind a wall of silence, writing in her journal and shuffling through a deck of lotería cards. Each of the cards' colorful images--mermaids, bottles, spiders, death, and stars--sparks a random memory.

 

Pieced together, these snapshots bring into focus the joy and pain of the young girl's life, and the events that led to her present situation. But just as the story becomes clear, a breathtaking twist changes everything.

By turns affecting and inspiring, Lotería is a powerful novel that reminds us of the importance of remembering, even when we are trying to forget.



Beautiful images of lotería cards are featured throughout this intricate and haunting novel.

Mario Alberto Zambrano published his debut novel Loterü¾™†”¼a in 2013 with Harper. He's the recipient of a Presidential Scholar Award, Princess Grace Award, NEA Fellowship in Literature, Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction, along with multiple residencies across the globe including Hawthornden Castle in Scotland, England. He has served as Lecturer in Theater, Dance & Media at Harvard University and is currently the Associate Director of Dance at The Juilliard School.