Itzá

By Rios de la Luz

In her debut novella, Rios de la Luz examines the lives of a small family of water witches living near the US-Mexico border. Exploring issues of race and trauma along with beauty and magic, Itzá is a powerful reclamation of body and identity.

"Rios de la Luz is among the most important emerging writing of our time, or any time, because she is inventing a new language without limits that explodes all walls and borders meant to keep us small and quiet. Weaving fabula with domestic trauma and sexual becoming, Itzá restories a girl's life and identity up and through the violence of a culture that cannot contain her. Like a new species facing off with death heads. Like myth rupturing the lies we are told about who we
are. Like a Xicana gender fluid voice and body ready to rearrange your reality, gloriously and without apology." – Lidia Yuknavitch, author of Thrust, The Small Backs of Children and The Chronology of Water

"[Itzá] rejects the cultural cliché of brown women’s bodies as a site of pity and pain. Instead, Itzá shows the ability for these women to flourish. Though the women are fictional, they have real potential to reach out to readers and say, “You are not alone; you deserve to exist.” – World Literature Today

"Itzá is not censored, nor does it hold itself back. It follows generations of water witches, shifting through time and narration while doing so. The book itself is a difficult read—not only because of its subject matter, but also because the language is deliberately poetic. The narrative moves around, and with short chapters, the focus jumps from one anecdote to another in rapid succession. It’s difficult to parse what is lyrical embellishment, what are fantastical elements, and what is 'real' to the story. But the result is wonderfully organic, beautiful, and heart-aching." – Book Riot