Longlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award - Finalist for The Story Prize - Finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction - Finalist for the California Book Award - Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the New American Voices Award
"Ruben Reyes Jr. is a wonder." -- Héctor Tobar
An electrifying debut speculative fiction story collection about Central American identity that spans past, present, and future worlds to reveal what happens when your life is no longer your own.
An ordinary man wakes one morning to discover he's a famous reggaetón star. An aging abuela slowly morphs into a marionette puppet. A struggling academic discovers the horrifying cost of becoming a Self-Made Man.
In There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven, Ruben Reyes Jr. conjures strange, dreamlike, and surreal worlds to explore what we would do if we woke up one morning and our lives were unrecognizable. Boundaries between the past, present, and future are blurred. Menacing technology and unchecked bureaucracy cut through everyday life with uncanny dread. The characters, from mango farmers to popstars to ex-guerilla fighters to cyborgs, are forced to make uncomfortable choices--choices that not only mean life or death, but might also allow them to be heard in a world set on silencing the voices of Central Americans.
Blazing with heart, humor, and inimitable style, There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven subverts everything we think we know about migration and its consequences, capturing what it means to take up a new life--whether willfully or forced--with piercing and brilliant clarity. A gifted new storyteller and trailblazing stylist, Reyes not only transports to other worlds but alerts us to the heartache and injustice of our own.
About the Author :
Ruben Reyes Jr. is the son of two Salvadoran immigrants and the author of There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and Harvard College, his writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Lightspeed Magazine, and other publications. Originally from Southern California, he now lives in Brooklyn.
Review :
"Ruben Reyes Jr. pulls off what can only be described as an exquisite--and heartbreaking--magic trick... you find yourself in the hands of a terrifically talented storyteller." - Washington Post
"In There Is A Rio Grande In Heaven, Ruben Reyes Jr. has written Salvadorans into every single corner of the imagination. I have been waiting, dreaming of short stories like these--stories not bound to existing narratives, but stories where we Central Americans have agency. Fearless, imaginative, revolutionary. These stories will expand your vision of the world and will leave you forever changed. Ruben Reyes Jr. is a revelation." - Javier Zamora, New York Times bestselling author of Solito
"Haunting, tender, and profound...Tethered to historical fact and enlivened by speculative elements, Reyes' fiction brings into focus the troubling legacies that stalk so many Central American nations." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A scintillating collection...Shot through with genuine pathos and astute social commentary...Reyes shifts effortlessly from absurdism to satire to sci-fi. These dynamic tales herald the arrival of a promising new talent." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The stories in this collection are playful, hilarious, queer, and delightfully speculative. They imagine new worlds and write into boundless futures." - Electric Literature
"An extraordinary debut of speculative fiction...the stories in this collection plumb a labyrinth of identity and duality explored through motifs like border crossings, citizens and immigrants, the imagined vs. the real, bisexuality, and the resurrection and destruction of family." - Booklist (starred review)
"This electrifying short-story collection about migration and reinvention is not to be missed." - People
"In this rich, lively and imaginative collection, Reyes' presents the richness of the American Latine and immigrant experience, not as we are perceived, but as we know and recognize ourselves to be. In Reyes' hands, robots, alternative colonial histories, and dream sequences are more than storytelling devices. They are as real and vivid as the grief, abandoned love and homelands these characters are trying to reconcile with their American realities. These are stories to treasure and ponder, long after the last page has been turned." - Xochitl Gonzalez, New York Times bestselling author of Olga Dies Dreaming
"This beautiful collection announces the arrival of an important voice in U.S. fiction. Ruben Reyes Jr. is a wonder. With equal doses of surrealism, intelligence, and wit, these genre-bending stories redefine identities, and give birth to a powerful new imaginary." - Héctor Tobar, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Deep Down Dark and The Tattooed Soldier
"Ruben Reyes Jr. is one of the most imaginative writers I've read in some time. A collection of beautiful and healing stories, There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven moves seamlessly through a time and space that confidently centers the plight of survival and imagines what could have been. Reyes Jr.'s writing is insightful and daring, full of heart and intelligence." - Alejandro Varela, author of Town of Babylon, finalist for the National Book Award
"Ruben Reyes Jr. has announced himself here in impressive fashion. This wonderful debut collection displays a virtuosic fictional range, often in the realm of what some would call the speculative, but in any case the depth of emotion, the insight into the lives of immigrants, and the potency and warmth of the writing in each story will leave you saying, This is real. This is true. When you read There is a Rio Grande in Heaven, your mind will be sent in many thrilling directions, and it will be powerfully deepened." - Jamel Brinkley, author of Witness and A Lucky Man, finalist for the National Book Award
"As stunning as it is surreal, There is a Rio Grande in Heaven bravely exposes the circuitry of our society--as well as its myths and lies--in ways that are jolting, jarring, and joyful. Capturing migrations domestic, international, and even interplanetary, Ruben Reyes Jr.'s debut depicts the astronomic costs so many incur in attempting to start anew, as well as the faith required to believe that a better tomorrow is possible. Wildly funny, so damn creative, and inspiring all the feels, Reyes and his work are out of this world." - Mateo Askaripour, New York Times bestselling author of Black Buck and This Great Hemisphere
