History can appear in different guises in novels—as historical setting, archival material, or storylines evoking past traumas. In Jeyamohan’s White Elephant (trans. Priyamvada Ramkumar), a nineteenth-century rebellion is captured against the backdrop of colonial rule in India; while Cristina Rivera Garza’s The Autobiography of Cotton (trans. Christina MacSweeney), weaves family history and historical records to create a multi-layered portrait of 1930s Mexico-U.S. borderlands. In Tarantula (trans. Daniel Hahn), Eduardo Halfon evokes a reimagined version of his own 1980s Guatemalan childhood—and the Jewish summer camp that, oddly, featured Nazi re-enactments. Will the cycle go unbroken? Moderated by Sabir Sultan, director of World Voices Festival.
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