Content area
Full Text
Yuri Herrera. Signs Preceding the End of the World. Lisa Dillman, tr. London / New York. And Other Stories. 2015. 114 pages.
Makina is in charge of a small Mexican town's telephone. A reliable messenger, she knows how to keep a secret and when to keep her mouth shut. She is dangerous when threatened, quick to defend herself against lecherous fools, and unafraid of speaking truth to power. The heroine of Yuri Herrera's second novel finds herself facing unprecedented challenges when she sets out to find her brother, who immigrated to the United States a few years earlier, and bring him a message from their mother.
Makina's story develops elemental themes of family and migration within a novel structured around an equally elemental journey narrative and guiding references...