An Archipelago in a Landlocked Country

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An Archipelago in a Landlocked Country is the lyrical storytelling of fieldwork conducted in Neuland, a Mennonite colony in Paraguay’s Boqueron department, and Cayim o Clim, the neighboring Nivakle settlement. The author was conceived in Neuland in 1990 and returned in 2013 and in 2016.

This multi-sequentially read book shifts in genre from ekphrastic descriptions of 30-second films shot in Asuncion, Filadelfia, and Neuland; to a short story collection inspired by metonymically translated Nivakle myths; and finally, a novella that mythologizes the life of a third generation Mennonite woman.

These three parts are not meant to be read in order. The hypertext gestures towards the omitted films and translations. This structure attunes readers to absent presences. The author’s narratives render other kinds of realities–Nivakle, Paraguayan, and Mennonite ways of being made over–and her own. This unweaving technique is inspired by Nanduti–a spider web pattern created by unraveling threads from a piece of fabric.