John Manuel Arias, WHERE THERE WAS FIRE

Totally Booked with Zibby

Zibby Owens

Connection, Inspiration, Moms, Entertainment, Arts, Reading, Books, Parenting, Literary

4.4 • 602 Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2023

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Zibby speaks with rising literary star John Manuel Arias about his lush and atmospheric new novel, WHERE THERE WAS FIRE. They talk about the intricacies of familial bonds, the haunting shadows of historical transgressions, and the poetic narrative that bridges the past with the present, set against the unforgiving backdrop of Costa Rica. John shares the profound influence of women in his life, the dance between personal and collective history, and the compelling journeys of characters grappling with loss, love, secrets, and legacy.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
0:06.7	This 30-minute podcast features a new author interviewed by me every single day, 365 days a year, for about 30 minutes.
0:14.9	I am also the publisher for Zibi Books, which publishes 12 books a year in fiction and memoir.
0:21.9	Our books are already out now.
0:23.5	You can check it out on ZippyBooks.com.
0:25.6	And we have a magazine called Zibby Mag where we have lots of wonderful essays and lifestyle
0:31.2	features.
0:31.8	That's at Zibbingag.com.
0:33.1	We have classes at Zippy Classes.com.
0:35.4	And I recently opened a bookstore in L.a called zibby's bookshop
0:40.3	at one one one three montana avenue at 11th street in san monica i hope that you are able to
0:47.0	enjoy some of our other offerings but this here podcast is the basis of all of it and started in
0:53.3	2018 and no matter what i do this is basically my of all of it and started in 2018. And no matter what I do, this is basically my favorite thing. Enjoy. John Manuel Arias is the author of Where There Was Fire. He is a queer Costa Rican American poet and writer. He is a Kanto Mundo Fellow and alumnus
1:12.9	of the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop. His prose and poetry have been published in Pank, the Rumpus,
1:18.5	Friction, Joyland Magazine, and Akashic Books. He has lived in Washington, D.C., Brooklyn, New York,
1:23.9	and in San Jose, Costa Rica, with his grandmother and four ghosts. Where There Was Fire is his first novel. Welcome, John Manuel. Congratulations on your book, Where There Was Fire, a novel. This book is so beautiful. Oh my gosh. What a work of art. Wow. Thank you so much. I appreciate all of the support and all of the kind words. It's really meant a lot.
1:46.5	I was trying to describe your book over lunch yesterday to my colleagues. And I was like, no, it's like Gabriel Garcia-Marquez meets like modern day, maybe memoir, maybe this is his family. I don't even know.
2:00.1	It's like, anyway, I was trying to
2:02.3	encapsulate just the most lyrical, beautiful language. Anyway, maybe you should do a better
2:08.6	job and explain the actual plot, which of course I know, but you know, go ahead. Well, thank you.
2:15.3	So in 1968 in Costa Rica, there is sort of a sinister American fruit
2:21.1	company, and its most lucid banana plantation burns to the ground. And with that burning plantation,
	...

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