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Celebrated Argentinian poet María Negroni explores her relationships to her mother and her writing through a veritable lash of language.
Heart of Damage is a “portrait of the artist as a young woman” that explores the mysteries of the mother–daughter bond and speculates about a link between trauma and poetic genesis. The mother in this narrative is a toxic, magnetic presence, shifting chameleonically from villain to victim—she is a pivot, a point of departure into investigations of writing’s relationship to silence, exile, politics, feminism, and grief.
Constructed as a mosaic of memories, dreams, fantastic and speculative scenes, and ars poetica, Negroni stands with Maggie Nelson, Tove Ditelvsen, Barbara Guest, and other unclassifiable writers who have delved deeply into the complex relationship between life and writing. Through a narrative that is at once direct and voluptuous, Negroni uses the intimate note, the astute observation, the political chronicle, the ballad of exile, and the gloomy song of mourning to write a faithful “census of illegible scenes.”
Praise for María Negroni's work
"A masterful work"—Carlos Pardo, Babelia
"I would give the Cervantes Prize to María Negroni"—Cristina Rivera Garza
“And if her writing seems to tremble at times it is not because it is cowering, intimidated by the size of the task, but because it is naked.”—Patricio Pron, Culturas
“An intimate and extraordinary novel in which she explores the ambiguous relationship between life and writing.“—Silvina Friera, Página 12
“Like Marguerite Duras throughout her work, like Vuong, Negroni explores the figure of her mother. She does so through sentences that function as very short paragraphs—each sentence a paragraph—veritable lashes of language.”—Carolina Esses, La Nación
“Forcefulness, musical rage, isolation that illuminates, language that overflows the boundary between prose and poetry, rhythm. Heart of Damage is almost a literary testimony, self-fiction sewn with the thread of literature, and above all the long and intricate journey of a writer's training.”—Mario Nosotti, Revista Ñ
“This novel is at once a testimony, an essay, a philosophical thought. It is also a profound reflection on childhood, the ultimate meaning of existence and the strangeness of life (...) Negroni's writing is constructed on the basis of precious miniatures and becomes immense.”—Verónica Abdala, Clarín
“Heart of Damage is a requiem and a hallelujah, a song in which what is important is almost nameless because everything is flesh.”—Esther Peñas
“The mother-daughter relationship leads me to María Negroni's extraordinary Heart of Damage, where a dazzling text puts a daughter in dialogue with her all-powerful mother. It is a deaf dialogue but sufficiently provocative for the daughter, who recognises the mother as the owner of language, to found a language of her own and become a writer.”—Paula Pérez Alonso, Página 12
María Negroni is the author of numerous books of poetry, essay collections, and novels. A Guggenheim Fellow in poetry and winner of the Siglo XXI International Essay Prize, her work has been translated into English, French, Italian, Swedish and Portuguese. Islandiawas awarded the 2002 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. She taught at Sarah Lawrence College from 1999 to 2014, and is now the director of Argentina's first creative writing program at Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero. After living in Bronxville, New York for two decades, Negroni now lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Michelle Gil-Montero has translated several books of contemporary Latin American poetry, lyric prose, and criticism. Her recent translations include Berlin Interlude (Black Square Editions) and Exilium (Ugly Duckling Presse) by María Negroni. She is the author of the poetry collection Object Permanence (Ornithopter Press). Her work has been supported by the NEA, Howard Foundation, PEN, Fulbright, and a Vermont Studio Center fellowship. She teaches at Saint Vincent College, where she directs the Minor in Literary Translation. She is the founding editor of Eulalia Books. Gil-Montero lives in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.