The Man Who Could Move Clouds

****PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST ****NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST ** From the bestselling author of Fruit of the Drunken Tree, comes a dazzling, kaleidoscopic memoir reclaiming her family's otherworldly legacy.

** **A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: TIME, NPR, VULTURE, PEOPLE, BOSTON GLOBE, VANITY FAIR, ESQUIRE, & MORE**

Rojas Contreras reacquaints herself with her family s past, weaving their stories with personal narrative, unraveling legacies of violence, machismo and colonialism In the process, she has written a spellbinding and genre-defying ancestral history. New York Times Book Review
**
For Ingrid Rojas Contreras, magic runs in the family. Raised amid the political violence of 1980s and '90s Colombia, in a house bustling with her mother s fortune-telling clients, she was a hard child to surprise. Her maternal grandfather, Nono, was a renowned curandero, a community healer gifted with what the family called the secrets : the power to talk to the dead, tell the future, treat the sick, and move the clouds. And as the first woman to inherit the secrets, Rojas Contreras mother was just as powerful. Mami delighted in her ability to appear in two places at once, and she could cast out even the most persistent spirits with nothing more than a glass of water.

This legacy had always felt like it belonged to her mother and grandfather, until, while living in the U.S. in her twenties, Rojas Contreras suffered a head injury that left her with amnesia. As she regained partial memory, her family was excited to tell her that this had happened before: Decades ago Mami had taken a fall that left her with amnesia, too. And when she recovered, she had gained access to the secrets.

In 2012, spurred by a shared dream among Mami and her sisters, and her own powerful urge to relearn her family history in the aftermath of her memory loss, Rojas Contreras joins her mother on a journey to Colombia to disinter Nono s remains. With Mami as her unpredictable, stubborn, and often amusing guide, Rojas Contreras traces her lineage back to her Indigenous and Spanish roots, uncovering the violent and rigid colonial narrative that would eventually break her mestizo family into two camps: those who believe the secrets are a gift, and those who are convinced they are a curse.

Interweaving family stories more enchanting than those in any novel, resurrected Colombian history, and her own deeply personal reckonings with the bounds of reality, Rojas Contreras writes her way through the incomprehensible and into her inheritance. The result is a luminous testament to the power of storytelling as a healing art and an invitation to embrace the extraordinary.

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by TODAY, Entertainment Weekly, Bustle, BookRiot, and More

"The Man Who Could Move Clouds is the work of a genius, a wildly moving, profound, groundbreaking, often hilarious book that I’ll reread until I die. Ingrid Rojas Contreras's history of her family and their power, ferocity, and formidable love knocked me sideways with joy and awe. Without knowing it, I’ve wanted this book my whole life."*—R.O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries

"The Man Who Could Move Clouds* is a testament to the richness of culture and family—as well as a call to maintain these essential elements, despite displacement and Westernization, throughout the generations. With unflinching honesty, Contreras translates the stories of her family and its curanderos—and therefore, herself—without watering them down. I am so grateful that this book exists in the world."—Esmé Weijun Wang, author of The Collected Schizophrenias*

***"The title, The Man Who Could Move Clouds, is not some magical-realism fancy. Ingrid Rojas Contreras is talking the real stuff, taking you into the curandero’s world. Tell yourself as you read, this is non-fiction. You will believe. And then your questions will begin."—**Luis Alberto Urrea

"The Man Who Could Move Clouds is a memoir like no other, mapping memory, myth, and the mysteries and magic of ancestry with stark tenderness and beauty. A dreamlike and literal excavation of the powers of inheritance, Ingrid Rojas Contreras has given us a glorious gift with these pages."—**Patricia Engel, author of Infinite Country****

Autorentext
INGRID ROJAS CONTRERAS was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Her memoir The Man Who Could Move Clouds was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and National Book Critics Circle Award, and her debut novel Fruit of the Drunken Tree was the silver medal winner in First Fiction from the California Book Awards. Her essays and short stories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The Believer, and Zyzzyva, among others. She lives in California.

Klappentext

"For Ingrid Rojas Contreras, magic runs in the family. Growing up in the Colombia of the 1980's and 1990's in a house where "what did you dream?" was asked in place of "how are you?" her world was laced with prophecy and violence. Her maternal grandfather, Nono, was a renowned curandero, a community healer gifted with the ability to talk to the dead, tell the future, treat the sick, and move the clouds. As a young girl, Rojas Contreras eavesdropped on her mother's fortune-telling business from the stairs and waited eagerly for the moments when Mami appeared in two places at once. She was accustomed to "letting the ghosts in." So when Ingrid, now living in the U.S., suffered a head injury in her 20's that left her with amnesia-an accident eerily similar to a fall that had put her mother in a coma at the age of 8, from which she woke with not just amnesia, but the ability to see ghosts--the family assumes "the secrets" have finally been passed down to the next generation. But as Ingrid recovers her memories, they don't come with supernatural abilities. Rather, she is consumed by a powerful urge to learn even more about her heritage than she knew before the accident. Spurred by a shared dream among Mami and her sisters, wherein Nono communicates that he is unable to rest peacefully in the afterlife, Ingrid joins her mother on a journey home to Colombia to disinter her grandfather's remains. With her mother as her unpredictable, stubborn and often hilarious guide, Ingrid traces her lineage back to her indigenous and Spanish roots, uncovering the violent and rigid colonial narrative that would eventually break her family into two camps: those who believe "the secrets" are a gift, and those who are convinced they are a curse. Interweaving family stories more enchanting than any novel, resurrected Colombian history, and her own deeply personal reckonings with the bounds of reality, Rojas Contreras writes her way through the incomprehensible and into her inheritance. The result is a luminous testament to the power of storytelling as a healing art and an invitation to embrace the extraordinary"--

Zusammenfassung
****PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • **NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • *From the bestselling author of Fruit of the Drunken Tree*, comes a dazzling, kaleidoscopic memoir reclaiming her family's otherworldly legacy.

** **A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: TIME, NPR, VULTURE, PEOPLE, BOSTON GLOBE, VANITY FAIR, ESQUIRE, & MORE**

“Rojas Contreras reacquaints herself with her family’s past, weaving their stories with personal narrative, unraveling legacies of violence, machismo and colonialism… In the process, she has written a spellbinding and genre-defying ancestral history.”—New York Times Book Review 
**
For Ingrid Rojas Contreras, magic runs in the family. Raised amid the political violence of 1980s and '90s Colombia, in a house bustling w…