A Most Anticipated Book of the Year: TODAY, Entertainment Weekly, Bustle, BookRiot, Electric Lit, SheReads, and More
“The Man Who Could Move Clouds is a memoir like no other, mapping memory, myth, and the mysteries and magic of ancestry with stark tenderness and beauty. A dreamlike and literal excavation of the powers of inheritance, Ingrid Rojas Contreras has given us a glorious gift with these pages.”—Patricia Engel, author of Infinite Country
“Rojas Contreras’s lyrical sentences combined with the authority of her narration held me in a kind of rapture, the sort of reading experience I most crave. What a wise and beautiful memoir, full of wonder and reverence for what the past plants in us, and how surprising and inevitable what blooms.”—Melissa Febos, author of Girlhood
“The Man Who Could Move Clouds is a testament to the richness of culture and family—as well as a call to maintain these essential elements, despite displacement and Westernization, throughout the generations. With unflinching honesty, Contreras translates the stories of her family and its curanderos—and therefore, herself—without watering them down. I am so grateful that this book exists in the world.”—Esmé Weijun Wang, author of The Collected Schizophrenias
“The title, The Man Who Could Move Clouds, is not some magical-realism fancy. Ingrid Rojas Contreras is talking the real stuff, taking you into the curandero’s world. Tell yourself as you read, this is non-fiction. You will believe. And then your questions will begin.”—Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The House of Broken Angels
“The Man Who Could Move Clouds is the work of a genius, a wildly moving, profound, groundbreaking, often hilarious book that I’ll reread until I die. Ingrid Rojas Contreras’s history of her family and their power, ferocity, and formidable love knocked me sideways with joy and awe. Without knowing it, I’ve wanted this book my whole life.”—R.O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries
“A lyrical meditation on her family’s history and the legacy of colonialism in Colombia…Mesmerizing…In grappling with the violence embedded in her family’s DNA, Rojas Contreras affectingly reveals how darkness can only be vanquished when it’s brought to the light. Fusing the personal and political, this rings out as a bold case against forgetting in a forward-facing age.”—Publishers Weekly
“In this dazzling memoir, Ingrid Rojas Contreras delves into her family’s stories and history that far surpass the enchantment found in many novels.”—SheReads
“A moving depiction of family and the power of healing.”—Kirkus Reviews
