Granta pre-empts Mónica Ojeda's 'wild and hallucinatory' novel

Granta has pre-empted the new novel from the National Book Award finalist Mónica Ojeda, Electric Shamans at the Festival of the Sun. 

Dan Bird, editor at Granta Books, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Sandra Pareja at Massie & McQuilkin Literary Agents on behalf of CBQ Agencia Literaria. 

The novel follows best friends Nicole and Noa, as they venture high into the Andes for a music festival that’s something more a shamanic gathering: mystical, animist and where the spiritual world of the pre-Colombian Andean people is not only the main belief system, but a power that can be harnessed. Noa becomes steadily more entranced by ideas of transcendence and begins to display increasingly odd behaviour. But while Nicole is concerned for her friend, others see this process as Noa being reborn and finding her true voice.

Bird said: “Mónica Ojeda’s new novel is wild and hallucinatory, conjuring such a distinct world. I was in awe of how the festival is a site of refuge, while also being filled with peril and terror; of how Mónica is exploring the murky line between transcendence and trauma. A finalist for a National Book Award and a Granta Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelist, Mónica is a singular talent, and we couldn’t be happier to welcome her to the list.” 

Ojeda added: “Electric Shamans is a book about music as both a joyful and a fearful way to know the world; about the need to find shelter in the middle of a storm, but also about the need to rebel, to welcome risk, so as to reclaim life. I admire Granta’s work so much and I couldn’t imagine a better place for the novel.”