{"product_id":"the-company-9798987926499","title":"The Company","description":"\u003cp\u003eBased on a trip to the now abandoned Mexican mercury mining town of San Felipe Nuevo Mercurio, \u003ci\u003eThe Company\u003c\/i\u003e explores the development of mercury mining as a technology and its present environmental consequences, both predictable and unforeseen, in what Cristina Rivera Garza terms \"an exemplary disappropriative work.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn a book that subverts both textual and graphic expectations, part a involves a rewriting of Amparo D?vila's \"The Houseguest,\" changing specific aspects of the text: verb tenses are transposed to the future; the houseguest becomes the menacing presence of The Company; and the domestic helper who suffers the intimidation of The Company along with her unnamed female employer is the machine. In part b, scientific reports dating from the 1950s to the present day, conversations with experts and miners, and excerpts from the story of \"Long, Tall Jos?\" construct a history of mercury mining in the area and the subsequent environmental contamination. In both sections, text is accompanied by images that range from Gerber Bicecci's intervened photographs of the ghost town and the surrounding area to technical diagrams and reinterpreted maps, plus pictograms from Manuel Felgu?rez's \u003ci\u003eLa m?quina est?tica\u003c\/i\u003e (1975). \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAs Rivera Garza says in her epilogue, \"Gerber Bicecci moves us toward the past and the future, without for an instant forgetting the present we share . . . Nothing is at peace here, everything is at stake.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eVer?nica Gerber Bicecci is a visual artist who writes. Her works include the series of drawings \u003ci\u003eDiagrams of Silence\u003c\/i\u003e, an exercise in visual exhumation based on the punctuation of various poems, and \u003ci\u003eMudanza\u003c\/i\u003e (2010), a collection of essays about writers who deserted conventional literature to become visual artists. She currently coordinates, with Guillermo Espinosa Estrada, the Permanent Diagonal Writing Workshop in Mexico City. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Christina MacSweeney is the translator of Valeria Luiselli's \u003ci\u003eThe Story of My Teeth\u003c\/i\u003e, which received the 2016 Valle Incl?n Translation Prize and was also shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award. Her translations include collaborations with Daniel Salda?a Par?s, Elvira Navarro, Juli?n Herbert, Jazmina Barrera, and Karla Su?rez. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eCristina Rivera Garza is the acclaimed author of \u003ci\u003eThe Iliac Crest\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Taiga Syndrome\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eLiliana's Invincible Summer\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eNing?n reloj cuenta esto\u003c\/i\u003e, among other books. Rivera Garza is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the Sor Juana In?s de la Cruz Prize, and the Anna Seghers Prize.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Sundial House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50895365538066,"sku":"9798987926499","price":32.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_969aeb35-09f0-4af4-b146-07ec0f202309.jpg?v=1738270812","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-company-9798987926499","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}