A provocative autobiographical novel that reckons with the legacy of colonialism through one woman's family ties to both colonised and coloniser
Alone in an ethnographic museum in Paris, Gabriela Wiener is confronted with her unusual inheritance. She is visiting an exhibition of pre-Columbian artefacts, the spoils of European colonial plunder, many of them from her home country of Peru. Peering through the glass, she sees sculptures of Indigenous faces that resemble her own - but the man responsible for pillaging them was her own great-great-grandfather, Austrian colonial explorer Charles Wiener.
In the wake of her father's death, Gabriela begins delving into all she has inherited from her paternal line. From the brutal trail of racism and theft Charles was responsible for, to revelations of her father's infidelity, she traces a legacy of abandonment, jealousy and colonial violence, and questions its impact on her own struggles with desire, love and race in a polyamorous relationship. Blending personal, historical and fictional modes, Undiscovered tells of a search for identity beyond the old stories of patriarchs and plunder. Incisive and fiercely irreverent, it builds to a powerful call for decolonisation.
Industry Reviews
'Wiener has rescued an intimate story from the family archive, a story that is also the infamous history of our continent, with her trademark intelligence and irreverent humor. Her prose, sober and forward, is fresh air; her view allows us to be testimonies of Latin America's cycles of plundering and looting' - Valeria Luiselli, author of 'Lost Children Archive'
'Reading Undiscovered, I wondered what so captivated me about this novel. Was it Gabriela's innate ability to plunder all sorts of convention? Her persistent exploration of our deepest despairs-the weight and falsehoods of the stories and imperatives we inherit? All this, but Undiscovered is also spurred on by a yet more profound and radical strength: the spirit of fury. Powerful and searing, this novel snaps, bucks, heals, and snaps again' - Samanta Schweblin, author of 'Fever Dream'
'Undiscovered's beautiful blend of fiction and personal feeling on everything from sex, to death, to Peru's traumatic history to France's heritage-colonial industry could not be more contemporary, vital and important, or expressed in more dynamic and immersive prose' - Preti Taneja, author of the Desmond Elliott Prize-winning 'We That Are Young'
'The best book that I've read about ancestry and love in the contemporary postcolonial condition' - Paul B. Preciado, author of 'An Apartment on Uranus'
'Gabriela Wiener's ease and grace allow her in Undiscovered to talk about family, desire, racism, colonialism and being a migrant both tenderly and sharply, vulnerable but strong like her beautiful writing' - Mariana Enriquez, author of 'Our Share of Night'
