Sunday, September 27, 2020

Q&A with Marjorie Agosin

From my Q&A with Marjorie Agosin, author of The Maps of Memory: Return to Butterfly Hill (Part of The Butterfly Hill Series), illustrated by Lee White:
How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The title of this book is the heart of the story; it came later to me, when the narrative was done. The characters of the book have created maps of the places their disappeared classmates lived. Each map becomes a memory of a lost life due to political upheavals. To create a cartography of a life is also to create a memory.

The editor liked this title. This collection is part of a series, and the first book is titled I Lived on Butterfly Hill, so we added a subtitle after The Maps of Memory: Return to Butterfly Hill. I love titles and I always give them as gifts to our fellow writers so this came as if it just happened. I am sure the unconscious plays a central part of a title but this one simply came and it is the perfect one.

Chile is a very long and thin country and everyone says, Oh yes Chile I have seen it in a map. This title evokes the story of a young adult involved in very brutal times, when a Dictator took over the nation and made those that did not think like him to simply disappear. The Maps of Memory wants to honor those that vanished and those who...[read on]
Learn more about The Maps of Memory: Return to Butterfly Hill.

Q&A with Marjorie Agosin.

--Marshal Zeringue