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From the author of There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven, this piercing, genre-bending debut follows two families in alternative timelines of the Salvadoran civil war in a stunning exploration of displacement, the mechanisms of fate, the gravity of the past, and the endurance of love.
Cambridge, USA 2018. Ana and Luis's relationship is on the rocks, despite their many similarities, including mothers that both fled El Salvador during the war. In her search for answers, Ana uses The Defractor, an experimental device that allows users to peek into alternate versions of their lives. What she sees leads her and Luis on a quest through Havana and San Salvador to uncover the family histories they are desperate to know, eager to learn if what might have been can fix what is.
Havana, Cuba 1978. The Salvadoran war is brewing, and Neto, a young revolutionary with a knack for forging government papers, meets Rafael at a meeting for the People's Revolutionary Army. The two form an intense and forbidden love, shedding their fake names and revealing themselves to each other inside the covert world of their activism. When their work separates them, they begin to exchange weekly letters, but soon, as the devastating war rages on, forces beyond their control threaten to pull them apart forever. Ruben Reyes Jr. is the son of two Salvadoran immigrants. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and Harvard College. His writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, AGNI, BOMB Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, LitHub, and other publications. His debut story collection, There is a Rio Grande in Heaven, was a finalist for The Story Prize, and longlisted for the the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the New American Voices Award. Originally from Southern California, he lives in Queens. Archive of Unknown Universes is his first novel. A sweeping speculative, literary love story that follows two couples in two different timelines of the Salvadorian civil war as they work out who they are together and apart and where (or who), they can truly call home. Speculative stories are rising in popularity: In the vein of The Ministry of Time or The Names, this beautiful literary love story is set in our world, with one difference - a machine called a Defractor exists. Internationally set between Cambridge, the US, El Salvador and Havana the novel is a beautiful reflection on the history of a specific place and the people it formed over several generations and the impact that immigration has on a person's lifetime, reminiscent of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. Well-reviewed author with beautiful prose: The writing is stunning and the author's short story collection There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven was well-reviewed in the US. ARCHIVES is already one of Mariner's most-requested books on US Netgalley and publishes there in early July 2025. A book for book-lovers: about writing and research, whether university research, lost histories or love letters
Cambridge, USA 2018. Ana and Luis's relationship is on the rocks, despite their many similarities, including mothers that both fled El Salvador during the war. In her search for answers, Ana uses The Defractor, an experimental device that allows users to peek into alternate versions of their lives. What she sees leads her and Luis on a quest through Havana and San Salvador to uncover the family histories they are desperate to know, eager to learn if what might have been can fix what is.
Havana, Cuba 1978. The Salvadoran war is brewing, and Neto, a young revolutionary with a knack for forging government papers, meets Rafael at a meeting for the People's Revolutionary Army. The two form an intense and forbidden love, shedding their fake names and revealing themselves to each other inside the covert world of their activism. When their work separates them, they begin to exchange weekly letters, but soon, as the devastating war rages on, forces beyond their control threaten to pull them apart forever. Ruben Reyes Jr. is the son of two Salvadoran immigrants. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and Harvard College. His writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, AGNI, BOMB Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, LitHub, and other publications. His debut story collection, There is a Rio Grande in Heaven, was a finalist for The Story Prize, and longlisted for the the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the New American Voices Award. Originally from Southern California, he lives in Queens. Archive of Unknown Universes is his first novel. A sweeping speculative, literary love story that follows two couples in two different timelines of the Salvadorian civil war as they work out who they are together and apart and where (or who), they can truly call home. Speculative stories are rising in popularity: In the vein of The Ministry of Time or The Names, this beautiful literary love story is set in our world, with one difference - a machine called a Defractor exists. Internationally set between Cambridge, the US, El Salvador and Havana the novel is a beautiful reflection on the history of a specific place and the people it formed over several generations and the impact that immigration has on a person's lifetime, reminiscent of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. Well-reviewed author with beautiful prose: The writing is stunning and the author's short story collection There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven was well-reviewed in the US. ARCHIVES is already one of Mariner's most-requested books on US Netgalley and publishes there in early July 2025. A book for book-lovers: about writing and research, whether university research, lost histories or love letters