Apr 29, 2013 – Loter a is the card-based Mexican variant of bingo and, in the hands of Zambrano, it s a deck stacked with narrative possibilities. Following her mother s disappearance and the arrest of her father, 11-year-old Luz Mar a Castillo dwells in the netherworld between state custody and return to Mexico, which her family left before she was born. But Luz is no stranger to in-between states, and, rendered mute by trauma, she addresses her history to God using the Loter a cards that are her sole possession. What follows are 53 chapters, each corresponding to a pictograph beginning with La Ara a (the spider) and ending with La Rana (the frog). The accompanying sketches assemble Luz s fractious family life in equally jagged fragments, some tender as La Dama (the lady), others deadly as El Alac n (the scorpion). The two central figures in Luz s recollections are her Pap , a tortured alcoholic who terrorizes his family, and her older sister Estrella, who pays a steep price for defying her father. And yet Luz s strongest memories are of the Mexican border town where she vacations, mariachi music, fireworks, and the roses in her yard. From these, Zambrano coaxes a language that straddles pictures and words, Spanish and English. An intriguing debut and an elegiac, miniature entry in the literature of Latin American diaspora that will break your heart.

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