In powerful, formally inventive essays, The Visible Unseen disrupts the purported cultural divide between arts and science. As both a chemist and an award-winning author, Andrea Chapela zeros in on the literary metaphors buried in the facts and figures of her scientific observations. Through questioning scientific conundrums that lie beyond the limits of human perception, the essays construct a startling new perspective from which to examine ourselves and the ways we create meaning.

Join author Andrea Chapela and translator Kelsi Vanada at 6pm CT / 7pm ET in a virtual conversation moderated by Jazmina Barrera, author of On Lighthouses and Linea Nigra: An Essay on Pregnancy and Earthquakes. You can preorder The Visible Unseen now using the code BUYDIRECT for 15% off.

When: Monday, October 17 at 6pm CT/ 7pm ET
Where: Brazos Bookstore (Houston, TX) via Zoom

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrea Chapela has a degree in Chemistry from the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) and an MFA in Spanish Creative Writing from the University of Iowa. She is the recipient of multiple awards, including the 2019 José Luis Martínez National Prize for Grados de miopía. The full English translation of the book is forthcoming as The Visible Unseen with Restless Books in October 2022. Her stories have been published in the journals Tierra Adentro and Este País, as well as in various anthologies. In English translation, her publications include poems in The Brooklyn Rail InTranslation and an essay in Tupelo Quarterly. She was named one of Granta’s Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists in 2021 and lives in Mexico City.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Kelsi Vanada is the author of the poetry chapbook Rare Earth, and her book-length translations include The Visible Unseen by Andrea Chapela and Damascus, Atlantis: Selected Poems by Marie Silkeberg, which was longlisted for the 2022 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. Kelsi holds MFAs in Poetry (Iowa Writers’ Workshop, 2016) and Literary Translation (The University of Iowa, 2017) and works as the Program Manager of the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) in Tucson, Arizona. She teaches occasional classes on literary translation and is an active reviewer of poetry in translation.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Jazmina Barrera was born in Mexico City in 1988. She was a fellow at the Foundation for Mexican Letters. Her book of essays Cuerpo extraño (Foreign Body) was awarded the Latin American Voices prize from Literal Publishing in 2013. She has published her work in various print and digital media, such as Nexos, Este País, Dossier, Vice, El Malpensante, Letras Libres and Tierra Adentro. She has a Master's Degree in Creative Writing in Spanish from New York University, which she completed with the support of a Fulbright grant. She was a grantee of the Young Creators program at FONCA. She is editor and co-founder of Ediciones Antílope and is the author of On Lighthouses and Linea Nigra: An Essay on Pregnancy and Earthquakes. She lives in Mexico City.