Cristina Rivera Garza is in conversation with Stacy Hardy about her book Liliana’s Invincible Summer. Cristina reflects on the experience of writing this book – a celebration of the life of her sister Liliana, who was murdered in 1990 by an ex-boyfriend. 

She considers alternative forms of justice, love, freedom, genre, the power of writing and language, subverting the narrative of patriarchy and the profound connections between the living and the dead.

Stacy Hardy is a writer, researcher and editor. Her first short fiction collection, Because the Night, was published by Pocko, London in 2015, and a new collection, An Archaeology of Holes, was released in translation by Rot-Bo-Krik in France in 2022 and is forthcoming in English via Bridge Books, USA. Her plays and librettos have been performed globally. Hardy is also a lecturer in Creative Writing, a partner in Saseni, and a founder of Ukuthula, a pan-African initiative that develops new writing from and against gender-based violence. She is currently a research fellow at The University of Chicago.

Cristina Rivera Garza is the award-winning author of The Taiga Syndrome and The Iliac Crest, among many other books. Rivera Garza is a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the Sor Huana Inés de la Cruz Prize. She is the M. D. Anderson Distinguished Professor in Hispanic Studies, and director of the PhD program in creative writing in Spanish at the University of Houston. Her most recent book is Liliana’s Invincible Summer (Hogarth, 2023). 

In this episode we are in solidarity with journalist Víctor Ticay, imprisoned in Nicaragua. Cristina and Stacy share moving tributes to Víctor and we call for his freedom. You can read more about his case here: https://www.pen-international.org/news/nicaragua-pen-international-condemns-the-imprisonment-and-charges-against-journalist-vctor-ticay

This podcast series is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Embassy in South Africa to promote open conversation and highlight shared histories.