Two Lines Press & Cuentero Productions present SOROCHE Live at The Brava

Two Lines Press and Cuentero Productions present Soroche, a haunting multimedia performance of Mónica Ojeda’s unflinching short story about a trip to the Andes at San Francisco's Brava Theater.

Adapted from the short story by award-winning Ecuadorian writer Mónica Ojeda (Jawbone, Nefando), translated by Sarah Booker and Noelle de la Paz and published in Through the Night Like a Snake: Latin American Horror Stories by Two Lines Press, Soroche depicts the effects of a leaked sex tape, filtered through the dizzying lens of altitude sickness. Told in alternating perspectives of Viviana, Karina, Nicole, and Ana—best friends since childhood— “Soroche” recounts the tragic events of a mountain trip intended to help Ana break out of depression following a scandal and the dissolution of an abusive relationship. The chorus of these confessions reveal contradictions, ruthlessly exposing flawed friendships and brutal hypocrisies lurking below the surface—all through the haze of Ana’s unraveling.

The cinematic sound design, created by Cuentero Productions to accompany the performance, immerses the audience in the suffocating, malignant air of the mountains while giving voice to Mónica Ojeda’s harrowing observations of abject humiliation and self-loathing.

“Mónica Ojeda is such a talented writer of uncomfortable scenarios,” says Two Lines Press editor Sarah Coolidge, “feelings themselves transform into a kind of horror.”

The performance will be followed by a conversation between translators Sarah Booker and Noelle de la Paz and Sarah Coolidge, editor of Through the Night Like a Snake.

Content warning: toxic friendship, body horror, graphic sexual content, self-harm

“SOROCHE,” written by Mónica Ojeda and translated by Sarah Booker and Noelle de la Paz, appeared in Through the Night Like a Snake, a collection of Latin American horror stories, published by Two Lines Press. Through the Night Like a Snake is an "eerie selection of exciting contemporary voices sure to keep readers up at night," (Publishers Weekly) and a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 (Literary Hub).

MÓNICA OJEDA is the author of the novels La desfiguración Silva, Nefando (Translated in 2023 as Nefando by Sarah Booker), and Mandíbula (Translated in 2022 as Jawbone by Sarah Booker and translated into french as "Mâchoires" by Alba-Marina Escalón for Gallimard), as well as the poetry collections El ciclo de las piedras and Historia de la leche. Her stories have been published in the anthology Emergencias: Doce cuentos iberoamericanos and the collections Caninos and Las voladoras. In 2017, she was included on the Bógota39 list of the best thirty-nine Latin American writers under forty, and in 2019, she received the Prince Claus Next Generation Award in honor of her outstanding literary achievements.

SARAH BOOKER is an educator and literary translator. Her translations include Mónica Ojeda’s Jawbone; Gabriela Ponce’s Blood Red; and Cristina Rivera Garza’s New and Selected Stories, Grieving: Dispatches from a Wounded Country, and The Iliac Crest. She has a PhD in Hispanic Literature from UNC-Chapel Hill and is currently based in Morganton, North Carolina, where she teaches Spanish at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics.

NOELLE DE LA PAZ is a writer and literary translator. Her work appears in The Recluse, Southwest Review, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere, and in the exhibitions Otherwise Obscured: Erasure in Body and Text (Franklin Street Works) and Boulevard of Ghosts (Local Project). She was a 2021-22 Emerge-Surface-Be Fellow at The Poetry Project and has also received support from Brooklyn Poets and the Queens Council for the Arts.

SARAH COOLIDGE is the editor of the Calico Series from Two Lines Press. She received her BA in comparative literature from Bard College. She enjoys reading books in Spanish and English, and she writes essays on photography and international literature.

TWO LINES PRESS is an award-winning independent press based in San Francisco committed to publishing daring and original literature in translation in striking editions. twolinespress.com

CUENTERO PRODUCTIONS is a bilingual, multimedia production house telling entertaining fiction and non-fiction tales established in Oakland in 2023. cuenteroproductions.com

THE CENTER FOR THE ART OF TRANSLATION creates publications, events, and educational programming thatnurtures and promotes the work of translators, builds audiences for literature in translation, and honors the incredible linguistic and cultural diversity of our schools and our world. catranslation.org

THE BRAVA THEATER is owned and operated by Brava! For Women in the Arts. Brava produces, presents, and cultivates the artistic expression of women, BIPOC youth, LGBTQUIA+, and other underrepresented voices.

More information available at https://www.catranslation.org/event/soroche-live-at-the-brava/