Planes Flying over a Monster

Finalist for the PEN Translation Prize

From one of Mexico's most exciting young writers, a cosmopolitan and candid essay collection exploring life in cities across the world and reflecting on the transformative importance of literature in understanding ourselves

In ten intimate essays, Daniel Saldana Paris explores the cities he has lived in, each one home to a new iteration of himself. In Mexico City he's a young poet eager to prove himself. In Montreal-an opioid addict desperate for relief. In Madrid-a lonely student seeking pleasure in grotesque extremes. These now diverging, now coalescing selves raise questions: Where can we find authenticity? How do we construct the stories that define us? What if our formative memories are closer to fiction than truth?

Saldana Paris turns to literature and film, poetry and philosophy for answers. The result is a hybrid of memoir and criticism, "a sensory work, full of soundscapes, filth, planes, closed spaces, open vastness" (El Pais).