The Volcano Daughters

June 24, 2024
Balibrera’s wrenching debut follows sisters Consuelo and Graciela after they’re displaced by a massacre in El Salvador. As little girls in 1914, they’re raised by their Indigenous mother, Socorrito, who labors on a coffee finca and was pursued by the girls’ biological father, Germán, the second most powerful man on the finca, because of her light skin. When Consuelo is four, Germán takes her from Socorrito and brings her home to his wife, Perlita, who is barren. After Germán dies in 1923, Perlita steals the younger Graciela and gives Consuelo to the country’s dictator, a former general known by his many detractors as El Gran Pendejo, as part of a complex plot to curry favor with him. In the 1930s, when El Gran Pendejo launches a genocidal campaign against the young women’s Indigenous community, they both flee the country. Consuelo, an aspiring artist, pursues her career in San Francisco and France, while Graciela, an actor, stars in degrading Spanish-language films in Hollywood. With keen psychological insight, Balibrera portrays how the women, each of whom doesn’t know the other has survived, make hard choices in search of fulfillment. It adds up to a powerful story of finding the strength to chart one’s own course.

Starred review from November 1, 2024

Balibrera debuts with a heart-wrenching portrait of Graciela and Consuelo, sisters caught up in the whirlwind of violence and political machinations in 1930s El Salvador. Born into an Indigenous community at the foot of a volcano, the two are separated in childhood but reunited in the capital, where Graciela serves as an oracle to an increasingly unhinged dictatorial general. When the general unleashes a brutal genocidal campaign on the sisters' home, they are caught in the mayhem, each believing that the other has died. They flee the country, heading in different directions, though each is accompanied by the ghosts of their childhood friends, who guide them, offer sharp-tongued commentary, and stand witness. In�s del Castillo serves as the primary narrator, La Yina, who conveys the story's momentum and, as a stand-in for Balibrera, is gently ribbed by the raucous ghostly chorus. Gisela Ch�pe, Elena Rey, Alma Cuervo, and E.A. Castillo vibrantly narrate the slain friends, bringing out their insouciant individuality and allowing listeners to imagine the women they might have become. VERDICT A haunting, layered story of community, empowerment, courage, and sisterhood, not to be missed.--Sarah Hashimoto

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