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About the Book

Anna Thalberg is a peasant woman shunned for her red hair and provocative beauty. When she is dragged from her home and accused of witchcraft, her neighbors do not intervene. Only Klaus, Anna’s husband, and Father Friedrich, a priest experiencing a crisis of faith, set out to the city of Würzburg to prove her innocence. There, Anna faces isolation and torture inside the prison tower, while the populace grows anxious over strange happenings within the city walls. Can Klaus and Friedrich convince the church to release Anna, or will she burn at the stake?

Set in the Holy Roman Empire during the Protestant Reformation, The Trial of Anna Thalberg is a story of religious persecution, superstition, and human suffering. While exploring the medieval fear of witches and demons, it delves into enduring human concerns: the historical oppression of women, the inhumanity of institutions, and the question of God’s existence. Frantic in pace and experimental in form, this novel is an unforgettable debut from Mexican author Eduardo Sangarcía.

Praise for THE Trial of Anna thalberg

“A novel that can be read with great emotion and great suspense, written with impressive formal virtuosity.” 

— Fernanda Melchor, author of Hurricane Season

“A wonderful work that challenges the reader on multiple levels and communicates directly with our present.” 

— Cristina Rivera Garza, author of The Taiga Syndrome

“A special emotion. A very absorbing novel showing power mechanisms that are still in force today and where the formal elegance of the narration is transformed into atmosphere and pure feeling.”

— Julián Herbert, author of Bring Me the Head of Quentin Tarantino

“With breathless rhythm and a raging as well as plaintive tone . . . [the novel] builds a magnificent celebration of the feminine.”

— Le monde

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Eduardo Sangarcía is the author of the short story collection El desconocido del Meno, which was awarded the prestigious Premio Nacional de Cuento Joven Comala 2017, and of the novel The Trial of Anna Thalberg, winner of the Mauricio Achar Award 2020. Sangarcía lives in Guadalajara and is studying for a Ph.D. in Humanities with a specialization on Latin American literature of the Holocaust.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Elizabeth Bryer is a translator and writer from Australia. Her translations include María José Ferrada’s How to Order the Universe and How to Turn into a Bird; Claudia Salazar Jiménez’s Americas Prize–winning Blood of the Dawn; and Aleksandra Lun’s The Palimpsests, for which she was awarded a PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant. Her debut novel, From Here On, Monsters, was co-winner of the 2020 Norma K. Hemming award.

BOOK DETAILS

Hardcover ISBN: 9781632063731 • $22.0

Publication date: Sept 10, 2024

 5" x 7.125" • 176 pages

Fiction: Historical/Occult

Rights: North America

eBook ISBN: 9781632063748