Daughters of the Air
When Pluta’s father, a university professor, disappears amid the turmoil of Argentina’s Dirty War, her family’s idyllic life crumbles. Unsure where he’s been taken or whether he’s even alive, Pluta and her mother struggle to cope with the disappearance—and to voice their fears and pain to one another.
Exiled to a boarding school in New York and churning with unresolved grief, Pluta runs away to Brooklyn in 1980. Her harrowing and surreal experiences on the dangerous streets soon threaten to destroy her completely—but may also at last break through the suffocating silence that has held her family captive.
Anca L. Szilágyi is the author of Daughters of the Air, which Shelf Awareness called “a striking debut from a writer to watch” and Dreams Under Glass, which Buzzfeed Books called “a novel for our modern times.” Her writing appears in Orion Magazine, Fairy Tale Review, and Newsweek, among other publications, and has been listed as notable in Best American Essays 2023. She is the recipient of fellowships and awards from Made at Hugo House, Jack Straw Cultural Center, 4Culture, Artist Trust, and Vermont Studio Center. Originally from Brooklyn, she has lived in Montreal, Seattle, and now Chicago, where she teaches creative writing.
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