EXPECTED RELEASE NOVEMBER 21st, 2025
THIS IS A PRE-ORDER ITEM; RELEASE DATES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE/DELAYS

In what was at first meant to be a short essay about the influential Mexican writer Elena Garro (1916-1988), Jazmina Barreras deep curiosity and exploration give us a singular portrait of a complex life.Sifting through the writers archives at Princeton, Barrera is repeatedly thwarted in her attempt to fully know her subject. Traditional means of researchthe correspondence, photos, and booksserve only to complicate and cloud the woman and her work.Who was Elena Garro, really?

She was a writer, a founder of magical realism, a dancer. A devotee to the tarot and the I Ching. A socialite and activist on behalf of indigenous Mexicans. She was a mother and a lover who repeatedly shook off (and cheated on) her manipulative husband, Nobel-laureate Octavio Paz. And above all, she wrote with simmering anger and glittering imagination.

The Queen ofSwords is a portrait of a woman that also serves as an alternative history of Mexico City; a cry-out for justice; and an homage to the unknowable. It transcends mere biography, supplanting something tidy and authoritative for a sprawling experiment in understanding.

Paperback | 254 pages | 5.50″ x 8.00″