Sara Mesa

From the author of the highly acclaimed Four by Four and Among the Hedges comes a collection of unsettling, captivating stories. The eleven stories in this collection approach themes of childhood and adolescence, guilt and redemption, power and freedom. There are children who resist authority and experience the process of growing up with shock and loneliness; alienated young girls whose...

Set entirely at Wybrany College—an institution where the wealthy keep their children safe from the chaos erupting in the cities—Four by Four is a novel of insinuation and gossip, in which the truth about Wybrany's 'program' is always palpable, but never explicit. An exploration of the relationship between the powerful and powerless—and the repetition of these patterns—Mesa's 'sophisticated nightmare' calls...

Subtly in the vein of Dogville or Coetzee's Disgrace, and invoking the works of Agota Kristof, Un Amor probes ideas of language, alienation, and community through the eyes of a woman who, when brought into conflict, finds herself on the potential brink of deeper awareness of herself and her place in the world. On the heels of a cryptic mistake,...

Among the Hedges by Sara Mesa follows the story of Casi, an almost fourteen-year-old who has been skipping school. She spends her days hidden among the hedges in a local park, listening to music and reading women's magazines. One day, she is discovered by Viejo, a fifty-year-old man. Despite their age gap, the two strike up a friendship. Viejo shares...