The Fish-Woman

The eyes that see are the eyes that tell.   On the banks of the Paraná River, a half-fish, half-Indigenous creature is discovered and captured by a group of Spanish Crown explorers during the conquest of the Americas. News of the find reaches Isabel, heir to the Castilian throne, who becomes obsessed with the creature and orders it brought to Europe. In stark contrast to the myth of the white, virginal, Europeanized mermaid, La pez introduces an amphibious woman whose untamed sensuality threatens to upend her captors’ designs. With a narrative interwoven with poetry, scientific discourse, and cinematic montage, Gabriela Larralde has crafted a haunting novel in which the fantastic and the feral take shape in characters and landscapes that refuse to submit to colonial violence.