Author’s Note

The novella Among the Hedges has its seed in the story “A contrapelo,” which I wrote for the anthology Riesgo, published by :Rata_ press in 2017. In its shift to this new text, the characters have gone through significant modifications and the narrative is different, but if anyone were to want to trace its origin, it is there, in that story.

The conversation between Soon and Old Man about the existence of a bird without feet is practically identical to a scene in the play Orpheus Descending, by Tennessee Williams, though I must admit that my first knowledge of this beautiful metaphor came from the play’s film adaptation, The Fugitive Kind, directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Anna Magnani and Marlon Brando.

Although the story, characters, and settings of Among the Hedges are completely invented, as I was writing I was picturing certain areas of Amate Park and its surroundings in Seville, where I often used to walk back when I was Soon’s age, a long time ago.

SARA MESA is the author of eleven works, including the novels Scar (winner of the Ojo Critico Prize), Four by Four (a finalist for the Herralde Prize), An Invisible Fire (winner of the Premio Málaga de Novela), Un Amor, and Cara de Pan (forthcoming from Open Letter). Her works have been translated into more than ten different languages, and she has been widely praised for her concise, sharp writing style.

MEGAN MCDOWELL has translated many of the most important Latin American writers working today, including Samanta Schweblin and Alejandro Zambra. Her translations have won the English PEN award and the Premio Valle-In-clán, and been nominated three times for the International Booker Prize. Her short story translations have been featured in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Tin House, McSweeney’s, and Granta, among others. In 2020 she won an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Santiago, Chile.