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    The Visible Unseen: Essays
    The Visible Unseen: Essays
    The Visible Unseen: Essays
    Ebook110 pages1 hour

    The Visible Unseen: Essays

    By Andrea Chapela

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Andrea Chapela, one of Granta’s Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists of 2021, breaks down literary and scientific conventions in this prize-winning collection of experimental essays exploring the properties and poetics of glass, mirrors, and light as a means of understanding the self. 


    In powerful, formally inventive essays, The Visible Unseen disrupts the purported cultural divide between arts and science. As both a chemist and an award-winning author, Chapela zeros in on the literary metaphors buried in the facts and figures of her scientific observations. Through questioning scientific conundrums that lie beyond the limits of human perception, she winds up putting herself under the microscope as well.


    While considering the technical definition of glass as a liquid or a solid, Chapela stumbles upon a framework for understanding the in-between-ness of her own life. Turning her focus toward mirrors, she finds metaphors for our cultural obsessions with self-image in the physics and chemistry of reflection. And as she compiles a history of the scientific study of light, she comes to her final conclusion: that the purpose of description—be it scientific or literary—can never be to define reality, only to confirm our perception of it. Lyrical, introspective, and methodical, The Visible Unseen constructs a startling new perspective from which to examine ourselves and the ways we create meaning.


    Editor's Note

    Clash of science and arts…

    “The Visible Unseen” is a thought-provoking essay collection rooted in the clash between science and the arts. Using the concepts of reflections and light — particularly mirrors — Chapela discusses perception versus reality, a topic that hits home in both scientific and creative endeavors (the author’s two passions). Chapela was named one of Granta’s Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists in 2021.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRestless Books
    Release dateOct 11, 2022
    ISBN9781632063533
    The Visible Unseen: Essays
    Author

    Andrea Chapela

    Andrea Chapela (Ciudad de México, 1990) estudió Química en la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México y un posgrado en Escritura Creativa en Español en la Universidad de Iowa. Fue becaria del Fondo Nacional de las Artes de México en el Programa Jóvenes Creadores y del Ayuntamiento de Madrid en la Residencia de Estudiantes. Algunos de sus reconocimientos son el Premio Nacional de Literatura Gilberto Owen 2018 de cuento, el Premio Nacional Juan José Arreola 2019 y, por “Grados de miopía”, el Premio Nacional de Ensayo Joven José Luis Martínez 2019. En 2021se incluyó su nombre en la lista de 25 promesas de la literatura en lengua española que cada diez años publica la revista británica “Granta”. Ha colaborado con “Literal Magazine”, “InTranslation”, “Samovar”, “Iowa Loteraria”, “Penumbria”, “Hiedra Magazine” y “Tierra Adentro”. Además de “Grados de miopía”, es autora de una tetralogía de novelas de fantasía (la saga Vâudïz: “La heredera”, “El creador”, “La cuentista” y “El cuento”) y dos libros de cuentos (“Un año de servicio a la habitación” y “Ansibles, perfiladores y otras máquinas de ingenio”, también disponible en audiolibro).

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    • 4/5
      Much like the subject of these essays, the author's thoughts expressed in essayatic form are spread out and cover a chaotic spanse of inconclusiveness. I can surely relate.

    Book preview

    The Visible Unseen - Andrea Chapela

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