Voyager begins with Nona Fernández accompanying her elderly mother to the doctor to seek an explanation for her frequent falls. As the author stares at the image of her mother's brain scan, it occurs to her that the electrical signals shown on the screen resemble the night sky. Inspired by the mission of the Voyager spacecrafts, Fernández begins a process of observation and documentation. Weaving together the story of her mother's illness with the story of her country and of the cosmos itself, Fernández braids astronomy and astrology, neuroscience and memory, family history and national history into this intensely imagined autobiographical essay. Scrutinizing the workings of personal, civic, and stellar memory, she seeks to recover what people and countries often prefer to forget. In her first work of nonfiction, Fernández has found a new container for her profound and surreal reckonings with the past. From back cover.
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