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'A wonderfully surprising novel, powered by wit, exuberance and nostalgia.' Chloe Aridjis, author of Sea Monsters
A captivating portrait of contemporary Mexico, cut through with dazzling wit and sensitivity
It started with a drowning.
Deep in the heart of Mexico City, where five houses cluster around a sun-drenched courtyard, lives Ana, a precocious twelve-year-old still coming to terms with the mysterious death of her little sister years earlier. Over the rainy, smoggy summer she decides to plant a vegetable garden in the courtyard, and as she digs the ground and plants her seeds, her neighbors in turn delve into their past. As the ripple effects of grief, childlessness, illness and displacement saturate their stories, secrets seep out and questions emerge – Who was my wife? Why did my mom leave? Can I turn back the clock? And how could a girl who knew how to swim drown?
Using five voices to tell the singular story of life in an inner city mews, Umami is a quietly devastating novel of missed encounters, missed opportunities, missed people, and those who are left behind. Compassionate, surprising, funny and inventive, it deftly unpicks their stories to offer a darkly comic portrait of contemporary Mexico, as whimsical as it is heart-wrenching.
A captivating portrait of contemporary Mexico, cut through with dazzling wit and sensitivity
It started with a drowning.
Deep in the heart of Mexico City, where five houses cluster around a sun-drenched courtyard, lives Ana, a precocious twelve-year-old still coming to terms with the mysterious death of her little sister years earlier. Over the rainy, smoggy summer she decides to plant a vegetable garden in the courtyard, and as she digs the ground and plants her seeds, her neighbors in turn delve into their past. As the ripple effects of grief, childlessness, illness and displacement saturate their stories, secrets seep out and questions emerge – Who was my wife? Why did my mom leave? Can I turn back the clock? And how could a girl who knew how to swim drown?
Using five voices to tell the singular story of life in an inner city mews, Umami is a quietly devastating novel of missed encounters, missed opportunities, missed people, and those who are left behind. Compassionate, surprising, funny and inventive, it deftly unpicks their stories to offer a darkly comic portrait of contemporary Mexico, as whimsical as it is heart-wrenching.
125 Reviews
3.5
ennoviPond
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“la segunda vez que lo leo, la primera vez que lo leí fue en el 2023 y había claveles en la casa, este año también hay claveles pero es marzo. Las señales para que lo volviera a leer estaban ahí... que bueno que les hice caso.”Aki Mäkinen
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María Sotelo
Created 4 months agoShare
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“A veces los humanos son muy bonitos🫶”
Claudia Ortiz Lara
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Sophia Krstin
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“Umami takes place in a mews in Mexico City, and we meet the characters of the 4 houses as the narrative jumps back and forth between 2000 and 2004.
It took me a while to get into this book but the pace picked up for me throughout the second half as some gaps were filled and I found it easier to piece together. I enjoyed the layers of themes including grief, childhood (or “offspringhood”), food, meaning, and language but I found the story itself lacking substance. I usually love a non-linear narrative with multiple character perspectives but here I struggled to keep track of everything.
I found myself thinking of the translator throughout, as the invention of words (especially colours) must have made this a fun challenge for Sophie Hughes.
Favourite quote:
“That’s one thing I’ve learned about food through pure empirical research: food is a patriot. Under no circumstances will it be replicated outside its mother country.”
A birthday gift from Hannah H.”About Laia Jufresa
Laia Jufresa was born in Mexico City. Laia’s work has been featured in several anthologies and magazines such as Letras Libres, Pen Atlas, Words Without Borders and McSweeney's, and she was named one of the most outstanding young writers in Mexico as part of the project Mexico20. In 2015 she was invited by the British Council to be the first ever International Writer in Residence at the Hay Festival of Literature. She currently lives in Cologne, Germany.
Sophie Hughes is a literary translator and editor living in Mexico City.
Sophie Hughes is a literary translator and editor living in Mexico City.
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