Casa Caracol: A Novella and Stories

Abstract

Casa Caracol: A Novella and Stories is a two-genre writing project. The novella is a collection of interconnected stories about two Venezuelan female childhood companions, Zafirah and Tamara, who maintain their friendship despite political upheaval and migration. The protagonist, Zafirah, must reconcile her divided cultural identity through the dynamics of her relationship with a new host country and her far-away homeland. The stories, Migrant Voicings, are language driven cuentos that attempt to render what is happening in a migrant-influenced mind. The voicings aim to challenge how a story is told and disrupt the expectations of what the immigrant story is supposed to be. There are thematic links to the novella--migration, Diaspora, alienation, violence, nostalgia and embodied longing, etc--and a vocal link, too, as some of the voices could belong to a grown-up, alternative Zafirah.