Tidal Waters

Tidal Waters / Velia Vidal
trans. from the Spanish by Annie McDermott
Edingurgh: Charco Press, 2024, c2023.
113 p.

This was an odd one, a short read that says it's fictional, but has so many elements of the story that correspond to the author's life that it's hard to know how to categorize it. 

The main character in this book is named Velia, she moves back to the black community on Colombia's Pacific Coast that she grew up in to start a reading program for children (just like the author). The book is epistolary, told in a series of letters to a friend in the literary world, back in the capital. 

I thought this was interesting, with details about a community I didn't know anything about. I enjoyed the discussion of reading and working with families; much of that felt familiar to me, as a librarian. But I didn't fall for this the way so many other readers have. I didn't really connect to "Velia" as the character. There was a lot in the letters about her affairs and sexual life, which I wasn't as interested in reading as her more intellectual ponderings. And I'm not sure where the story was going, as it doesn't have much plot, it's more a thoughtful examination of a life and its development. 

I appreciated the focus on literature as a way to experience and engage with life, and the work that her organization Motete was doing. Not sure if this would be better placed as a creative memoir, though. 

In any case, much of interest here even if I didn't really love it as a whole.