I remember the moment I was introduced to Donna Barba Higuera’s The Last Cuentista. It occurred on my 42nd birthday during which I was hosting an intimate birthday party at my house with four of my closest friends. Francesca Padilla is one of them. I’ve known her since 2016 at a writing group located at one of the local bars here in Rochester, New York. A published author herself, I’ve always known her for her keen observation and crafting stories that unapologetically illustrate the complicated struggles of being a marginalized teen girl. The realism and relatability of the female characters in her own Young Adult (YA) novel, What’s Coming to Me is a testament to my friend’s amazing taste in literature. So when she gave me a copy of The Last Cuentista, I knew I was holding a literary treasure in my hands. And I was right.
Set in 2061, The Last Cuentista is astory told from the perspective of 12-year-old girl Petra Peña. Since childhood, she has always wanted to be a cuentista—or storyteller—like her beloved grandmother, Lita. When a comet obliterates Earth, Petra—along with her and younger brother, Javier—are aboard a ship called the Alpha Centauri. From there, the Peñas and other families head towards the planet Sagan to establish a new life. While traveling to her future home in a cog aboard the Alpha Centauri ship, the young teen carries her love for storytelling and hopes of honoring the tradition as the last cuentista in her entire lineage.
But when Petra arrives in Sagan centuries later, she is horrified to discover that the Alpha Centauri ship has been seized by anextremist group called the Collective. Aside from reprogramming the memories of most of the ship’s inhabitants, the eugenics organization purged from the Alpha Centauri anyone who failed the reprogramming procedure. Worsening the situation is the main protagonist’s realization is that she alone remembers the history of Earth, as well as the history of the literary arts. Understanding the magnitude of her dilemma, Petra must heavily rely onher gifts as the last storyteller to reunite with her family and escape the oppression of the Collective.
While constructing the Bibliotherapy section for the Chronicles of the Fellow Traveler website, I added this incredible YA modern classic without hesitation. Here are the reasons why:
· Higuera’sMultifaceted Genre-Bending
When I wrote amini review of this The Last Cuentista for Instagram, I described Higuera’s mastery of simultaneously bending multiple genres. Petra’s personal accounts reflect the author’s amalgamation of Dystopian, Science Fiction, Psychological Horror, Suspense, and Mexican Folklore with impressive precision. She uses Science Fiction and Dystopian influences to pave a foundation for the Earth’s demise and the Peña family’s relocation to a new planet to call home. The utilization of advanced technology to perform tasks like implanting knowledge into the passengers’ subconscious mind during their hibernation phase is also a common theme within these genres.
But the Collective and the invasive measures they execute to construct an emotionally sterile utopia introduces the blatant presence of Psychological Horror and Suspense. For Petra, the physical appearance of the Collective is disturbing enough. She vividly describes them as people with rail thin bodies with skin that resembles the color of chalk. Chancellor Nyla and Crick act as the authoritative figures that determine whose lives are worth preserving for their cause. When observing some of her fellow passengers, Petra notices that the daily dose of juice they consume strips them of their emotions and wherewithal. The passengers’ lack of awareness and human reactions is similar to that of the citizens in the 2002 Dystopian Science Fiction film classic Equilibrium.
The Collective’s explanation behind enforcing such oppressive standards is their belief that remembering the history of Earth will initiate conflicts that could possibly result in war. They assume that complex subjects like politics and religion are the root of the world’s divisiveness, which would only be exacerbated by mediums that stir human emotions and opposing views. Literature is a form of media powerful enough to create such reactions. This is one of the reasons why members of the Collective attempt to erase centuries worth of literature from Petra’s downloadable cog during her hibernation phase.
The Collective’s treatment of these new citizens of Sagan and their stifling of history is similar to the Don’t Talk, Don’t Trust, Don’t Feel rule often mentioned amongst members of Adult Children of Alcoholics Anonymous (ACA). This mandate is self-explanatory. As children, we ACA members (or Fellow Travelers) have received the message that we must remain silent about the dysfunction that unfolds within our toxic home environments. In fact, we were often intimidated into silence to the point of forgetting what we heard or saw. Our relatives also taught us that no one in or outside the home was trustworthy and that trusting ourselves was equally dangerous. And because of the supposed risk of trusting, we knew better than to display our natural human emotions.
Another factor was our justifiable fear of severe punishment for protesting our family’s unreasonable expectations. This was especially the case for the Black Fellow Travelers. White colonialism fractured the parenting models that were once normalized within pre-colonial African communities. As a result, most Black children are treated as the parents’ property and will likely face physical punishment for vocalizing their concerns. Though this doesn’t necessarily happen to any of the children in Higuera’s novel, the Collective do harbor and voice their expectations for assimilation and social order. Like the Collective, our dysfunctional familial community often requires children to forfeit their emotions and ability to trust their own instincts to maintain the family’s comfort.
What prevents Petra from assimilating into this oppressive and emotionally bereft society is Mexican Folklore. Woven throughout The Last Cuentista are cuentos—or short stories. When reminiscing about her now late grandmother Lita, she accurately recalls the moments she’d sit quietly as Lita recites a folktale that brings attention to Higuera’s love for her Mexican heritage. This unconditional love and pride in one’s heritage is also evident in Petra’s cuentos. While some of them are ones that her grandmother told her, the young girl crafts her own that are inspired by her ordeal involving the Collective.
· Trauma Survivors’ Connection to Petra’s Story
Higuera impeccably interweaves complex genres to provide readers with a thought-provoking story illustrating the ramifications of a misguided population. The Collective are made up of a people blinded by their own myopic perspective of the world. In their minds, a societal and cultural utopia is obtainable only when we avoid any mention of the past. And this cult is willing to achieve this objective by any means necessary—even if it involves manipulating the psychological health of others.
Unbeknownst to the organization’s members, Petra isn’t reprogrammed and is taking mental notes of her surroundings just so she never forgets. And honestly, she doesn’t want the readers to forget either. In The Last Cuentista, Higuera writes Petra’s narrative in the present tense. This style of writing immediately places readers are placed in the position of being the young girl’s second pair of eyes. Through Petra’s vivid descriptions of her surroundings, the author forces readers to place ourselves in the body of the only person who remembers the history of an obsolete planet. In the body of a preadolescent child with retinitis pigmentosa, a visually impairing condition that worsens with age. Aside from having to pretend that the Collective successfully deleted her sense of identity from her mind and spirit, Petra searches for the parents and young sibling from which she is separated. On top of that, Petra becomes the surrogate parent of some of the children who haven’t succumbed to reprogramming.
Because we are her witnesses, we know that Petra is telling the truth. We understand how much the Collective terrifies her. Engulfed in Petra’s captivating story, I find myself holding my breath every time the young girl struggles to resist the natural urge to display her emotions in a Collective member’s presence. Or wishing to be her second pair of eyes whenever she sneaks out of her room to search for her lost family. Or wanting to pull her close and gently remind her that I’d do everything I can to protect her from the organization that wants to eradicate her recollection of the past. Because like her, I am the first child. Like Petra, I am the oldest sibling who’s been adultified and parentified at an age at which I should’ve been allowed to simply experience life as a child. And like her, I’ve masqueraded as someone else. The only difference is that Petra suppresses her identity as someone who communicates with thoughtfulness and vibrant emotions. I had to pretend to be an entire person while shoving away the discomfort of living with a gender identity that has never aligned with my authentic self.
That’s when it occurs to me that, in some respects, Petra and I are no different. I was also a pre-adolescent surviving maltreatment in an oppressive home environment. The Collective was my dysfunctional familial community. The tactics my relatives executed to force assimilation and conformity onto me was their attempt to erase my sense my transness, queerness, and alternative Blackness. Unlike me, Petra doesn’t experience childhood trauma at her family’s hands. In fact, Petra is the daughter of two very loving parents and is surrounded with undying love and support. However, I was amongst the Black children were once compelled to stifle our true selves and become whoever and whatever we believed would safeguard us from interpersonal violence.
· Emphasis on theSignificance of Oral Storytelling
The most important aspect of The Last Cuentista is the spiritual, political, and cultural power of oral storytelling and how such power is wielded in every chapter. Petra is contending with a multitude of obstacles involving the Collective at the age of twelve. The young girl has been separated from her parents and brother. She lost her grandmother to a catastrophic natural disaster. Not only is she tasked with planning an escape from the Collective for herself, but for the small group of children she is now protecting.
Despite these difficulties, however, the young girl uses her ability to weave elaborate stories to not only ease the burden of the children relying on her. She is also using cuentos to organize an escape plan that the younger children can comprehend. In this context, Petra is using her cuentos as a navigational device and a form of therapy. This is nothing new. Oral storytelling has always been employed by marginalized demographics as a therapeutic and educational tool.
This is especially true for those who’ve experienced decades, if not centuries, of racialized systemic oppression. We Black Fellow Travelers, for instance, came from a long line of oral storytellers. Our enslaved African and Black ancestors relied upon their skills as griots—or oral historians, as a form of entertainment amongst themselves after toiling in the fields. Encoded into some of these stories, however, were directions pointing to an escape route that led to Canada or the Northern states. Oral storytelling allowed our ancestors to stretch their creativity and intelligence to outmaneuver the White slave master. This is also the case for the Black Fellow Travelers who enjoyed oral storytelling. As children, stories served as entertainment. But they served as a temporary escape route that distanced us from our dysfunctional familial community. These same stories were also a blueprint that we thought outlined a way of life that was exponentially more suitable than our reality.
While oral storytelling can be a navigational and therapeutic tool, it’s also perceived as a spiritual practice. Though not explicitly implied, the cuentos Petra weave in The Last Cuentista are ancestral venerations that further solidify the spiritual connection the young girl has to her late grandmother Lita. Petra uses their shared love for storytelling to communicate with the matriarch, mainly as a way of seeking familiarity and sense of familial connection. In turn, Lita appears in her granddaughter’s dreams to provide guidance that might help her escape.
The ritual of venerating our ancestors is usually practiced by Black Fellow Travelers who incorporate indigenous and/or diasporic spiritual traditions into our ACA recovery work. For example, those who practice Hoodoo uses storytelling as a form of veneration. Storytelling allows us to pay our respects to our ancestors by honoring their history and overall presence. Ancestral veneration is another way of asking our people to offer guidance and protection from potential adverse events. Such events includes the multiple consequences of historical and generational trauma founded on White supremacy.
Modern literary classics like The Last Cuentista are the reasons why I prioritize works written by BIPOC authors that feature BIPOC characters. Not only do the storylines accurately reflect the culture, but they portray marginalized characters whose personal lives reflect the cultural, political, and social awareness that many BIPOC youth convey. But most importantly, The Last Cuentista allows readers/BlackFellow Travelers such as me to see that storytelling holds the power to teach and inspire. To provide us with the information and guidance necessary to resist oppression instigated by the government and our dysfunctional familial communities.
Have you Donna Barba Higuera's The Last Cuentista? if so:
- What did you take away from the book?
- What character do you resonate with and why?
- In what ways do The Last Cuentista resonate with your life and that of the child, teen, and/or younger adult you once were?
I'd love to read your comments!
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