Book Talk: From the Abuelas' Window by Nancy Burke
Join us for a book talk with author Nancy Burke about her book From the Abuelas' Window. The novel is currently being adapted for the musical stage!
About the book
It is Chile, 1974. Pinochet has taken over the presidential palace and the government far away in Santiago. The village school in a remote farming community has been closed and converted into a detention center for political prisoners. Maribel, a young girl in the village, is protected by her mother from the truth about her father who is among the prisoners but has been moved to an unknown place.
Three nosy old neighbors, the abuelas, love to peek out their window and watch Maribel and her sisters play innocent games in their mother's beautiful garden. They are rumored to have strange, magical powers, but stubborn and restless Maribel doesn't believe the rumors. She just wants her Papa, who she believes is visiting sick relatives, back so her mother doesn't depend on the abuelas for help.
A gift from the abuelas sets the story in motion and in a curiosity-driven moment, Maribel learns the truth about her father. The gift, an old red bicycle, takes her beyond the confines of her mother's garden and into the reality her mother can no longer keep from her.
Maribel responds by helping her mother bring food to the prisoners in her old school. She keeps a list of names of the innocent, hoping somewhere, someone is doing the same for her father.
The military comes in force to their village. Others are arrested, including Maribel's mother. The sisters discover a young girl, Sandra, hiding in their orchard. Her parents have been taken. Books are burned, songs are banned, but the village festival is held as usual, although under the watchful eye of the captain of the guard.
Maribel and her sisters take the power of love and magic, learned from the crafty old abuelas, into their own hands to change the course of fate for their family, their friends and a group of innocent strangers. Someone, somewhere, does the same for Papa.
About the Author
Nancy Burke is the author of Only the Women are Burning (2020), If I Could Paint the Moon Black (2014), From the Abuelas’ Window (2005) and a new short story collection, Death Cleaning and Other Units of Measure (2024). She holds an MFA in Fiction (Dramatic Writing concentration) from Rutgers’ University, Newark and a BA in Anthropology from Montclair State University. Her short stories have appeared in Pilgrim: A Journal of Catholic Experience, Meat for Tea: The Valley Review. At the Pool was a finalist for the J.F. Powers Award for Short Fiction at Dappled Things Literary Journal. Her screenplay adaptation of Only the Women are Burning won a Finalist recognition from the 2023 Boston Screenplay Competition. She is at work on a musical adaptation of From the Abuelas’ Window. Visit her Work in Progress page for info on this project. She teaches writing at New Jersey Institute of Technology and lives in Little Falls, NJ.
www.nancyburkestories.com