Latitudes

Latitudes is a semi-autobiographical novel in which the author weaves together various literary techniques, styles and genres, including poetry, short fiction and the chronicle, and follows the threads of time that tie the city to the province, the child to the adult, and even a near revolution that links the northern and southern hemispheres. Latitudes takes its readers on a journey of self-discovery where individual experience blends with the universal.

Excerpts from Latitudes

• Juanita (Letter)
• Jorge (Letter)
• Christmas

Comments on Latitudes

“Each fragment has the vitality and essence of the human experience, as this woman, the principal character, recovers and tells her story. But Gabriela goes beyond expressing her inner thoughts and personal experiences and succeeds in recreating … the different lifeworlds in which her narrative unfolds.”
Gregorio Angelcos, Chilean journalist and writer, editor of the journal “Causa Cero”

“As a result of my searches, like a library mouse, I found the book “Latitudes”, by Gabriela Etcheverry, the Chilean writer and poet living in Canada. This book was a very pleasant surprise. It comprises stories, commentaries, letters, dialogues, fragments and poems, and is written with a passion that is contagious.”
Aldo Dall’Orso, Premio Iberoamericano de Poesía “Pablo Neruda 2006”

“Gabriela narrates with a childlike innocence, and by her grammar of signs bathed in the ocean waves of Coquimbo, she takes us aboard a postmodern vessel, a place where the literary vanguard comes together, where all forms combine.”
Gloria Mendoza Borda, Peruvian poet and literary critic

“Gabriela’s novel is fresh; she brings an air of simplicity as she recovers the spoken language.… Her narrator’s touch … is light … and sure, as it carries us along with steady control from the beginning to the end. She opened her eyes to life, and that is why she decided to write: to keep herself alive and to resist becoming overwhelmed. The lyrical moments … the humour … the nostalgia: these elements hold us in their grip. Thank you, Gabriela, for your shining gift!”
Fernando Veas, Professor, UNAM, Quebec

“The narrator comes to appreciate the experiences that give life meaning: the birth of her daughter Esperanza; her postgraduate studies; her late self- realization as a writer… And as if life consisted entirely of unforeseen events taking shape under new skies: ‘What matters is that I came out of it with a clear awareness that my life was in Canada. I would no longer look to the past but to the future.’”
Claudio Durán, Poet and Professor, York University, Toronto