Say Her Name: A Novel

Francisco Goldman

Apr 2011 · Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

About this ebook

The Pulitzer Prize–finalist’s intimate autobiographical novel of a marriage cut tragically short is “a beautiful love story, and an extraordinary story of loss” (Colm Tóibín).

In 2005, celebrated novelist Francisco Goldman married Aura Estrada. The two were deeply in love, and Aura was a gifted young writer on the cusp of her own brilliant career. But while on vacation only a month before their second anniversary, Aura died in a tragic accident. In Say Her Name, Goldman pours his feelings of love and unspeakable grief into a fictionalized account of their brief time together.

Desperate to keep Aura alive in his memory, Goldman collects everything he can about her, delving deeply into the writings she left behind. From her childhood and university days in Mexico City to her studies at Columbia University, through the couple’s time in New York City and travels to Europe, Goldman composes a vivid and multifaceted portrait.

Filled with “propulsive drama” (The Boston Globe), Say Her Name is a tribute to who Aura Estrada was and who she would’ve been, that “will also transport you into the most primal joy in the human repertoire—the joy of loving—and reveal it with aching vibrancy” (San Francisco Chronicle).

About the author

Francisco Goldman has published four novels and two books of nonfiction. The Long Night of White Chickens was awarded the American Academy's Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction. His novels have been finalists for several prizes, including, twice, The Pen/Faulkner Prize. The Ordinary Seaman was a finalist for The International IMPAC Dublin literary award. The Divine Husband was a finalist for The Believer Book Award. The Art of Political Murder won The Index on Censorship T.R. Fyvel Book Award and The WOLA/Duke Human Rights Book Award. The Interior Circuit: A Mexico City Chronicle, published in 2013, was named by the LA Times one of ten best books of the year and received The Blue Metropolis "Premio Azul" 2017. His most recent novel, Say Her Name, won the 2011 Prix Femina Etranger. His books have been published in sixteen languages. Francisco Goldman has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Cullman Center Fellow at the NY Public Library, and a Berlin Fellow at the American Academy. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  He also received a 2017 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Prize, and has just been named a recipient of PENMexico’s 2017 Award for Journalistic and Literary Excellence. He has written for The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, Harper's, The Believer, and many other publications. He directs the Aura Estrada Prize (www.auraestradaprize.org). Every year Goldman teaches one semester at Trinity College in Hartford, CT., and then hightails it back to Mexico City.