“Que Esperanzas” is a new series from Book Public.
The expression "Que Esperanzas" is an ironic or pessimistic interjection meant to convey the improbability of success.
Book Public’s “Que Esperanzas” series focuses on short stories with protagonists who are women surviving catastrophic injustice in their everyday lives with a thin measure of hope.
This week's story is “Nature Exchange” by Sindya Bhanoo.
Veena and her son, Neel, make frequent trips to a nature center. It is an outing that bonds them and that underscores their special connection as mother and son. When Neel is killed in a school shooting, Veena’s world is upended. She struggles and clings to the memory of her son by continuing the routines they’d shared. She enters those same spaces as if to recover the immensity of what she has lost. What can she possibly gain in the process of her stark and unending grief?
The story “Nature Exchange” can be found in the story collection Seeking Fortune Elsewhere.
