About False Calm

Part reportage, part personal essay, part travelogue, False Calm is the breakout work by Argentinian author Maria Sonia Cristoff.

Writing against romantic portrayals of Patagonia, Cristoff returns home to chronicle the ghost towns left behind by the oil boom. In prose that showcases her sharp powers of observation, Cristoff explores Patagonia's complicated legacy through the lost stories of its people and the desolate places they inhabit.

María Sonia Cristoff (Trelew, Patagonia, 1965) is the author of five works of fiction and nonfiction, including False Calm and Include Me Out. She lives in Buenos Aires, where she teaches creative writing and is a regular contributor to the newspapers Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Perfil, and La Nación.

Katherine Silver is an award-winning literary translator and the former director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre (BILTC). Her most recent and forthcoming translations include works by María Sonia Cristoff, Daniel Sada, César Aira, Horacio Castellanos Moya, Julio Cortázar, Juan Carlos Onetti, and Julio Ramón Ribeyro. She has also translated works by José Emilio Pacheco, Elena Poniatowska, Jorge Franco, Martín Adán, and Pedro Lemebel, among others. Katie Silver's mother Esther owned a bookstore in Point Reyes Station for many years.