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Mexico's Premio Coatlicue Nominated for the IMPAC Dublin International Literary Award for works making "a lasting contribution to excellence in world literature."

Critical Praise for A Tuesday Like Today

• Fresh, witty and amusing, A Tuesday Like Today is a map of our longing against our own powers of destruction. What is a novel today but the longing for meaning (in this case, for the temples of Angkor, the heart of ruined Cambodia) among tourists and casual characters? Looking to fulfill the dream of Angkor, Cecilia Urbina's novel has to endure "the usual crowd: sophisticates . . . neurotics and enthusiasts." A powerful, provocative book.

  — Julio Ortega, author of The Poetics of Change: The New Spanish-American Narrative

• Cecilia Urbina has crafted a magical and sophisticated tale of three Mexican travelers who come together in Angkor, Cambodia, a place "between reality and story," where its visitors hunger to breathe new life into their own histories, memories and imaginations through the transformative power of storytelling. Inventive, highly-engaging and perceptive about the creative impulse, A Tuesday Like Today proves its dictum: "The things you read create visions that wait to be discovered."

  — Rigoberto González, author of Men without Bliss

Reviews

• Library JournalOct. 1, 2008

  While on vacation in Cambodia, sisters Camila and Margara link up with traveler David Masters-Iturbe. During the day, the three tour jungle ruins and witness the destructive legacy of Pol Pot; during the evening, they regale one another with stories that seem at first to be family stories but that become more and more involved as the three invent and reinvent the characters in their fantasies. The sisters — the beautiful, wealthy Camila and the worrisome, intellectual, lonely Margara — are sometimes pulled apart, sometimes brought together by their awakening relationships with David and the realization of the strength of their joint past. The interwoven stories of the three characters and their shared fantasies brush with magical realism and are occasionally hard to follow, but the novel is well worth the concentration required. First published in Spanish in 2004, this novel — Urbina's first to be published in English — and another not yet translated won the author the Premio Coatlicue, the prestigious Mexican literary award. Recommended for literary fiction collections in medium and larger libraries.

  ———

  Reviewed by Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield College Library, McMinnville, OR

• San Antonio Express-NewsJanuary 04, 2009

  Reviewed by Yvette Benavides

  Angkor, the historical center of a wounded Cambodia, becomes a road map for two Mexican sisters vacationing there in A Tuesday Like Today by award-wining Mexican author Cecilia Urbina.

  The legacy of Pol Pot in the ravaged country — along with its jungle ruins — presents a compelling backdrop for Camila, the head-turning, wealthy, younger sibling, and for Márgara, the older, more practical and fretful sister.

  In the bar of the Grand Hotel, the sisters strike up a quick friendship with David, a Mexican well-versed in the history of Cambodia and its many exotic spots. He is, for all practical purposes, a citizen of Angkor and volunteers to guide them through the jungles.

  Camila is married, but she is immediately taken with David and acts on those feelings. Márgara is likewise smitten, but can only sit back and consider her terrible luck at love.

  With David's Jeep at their disposal, the three set off on exciting sightseeing journeys during the day. They retire to the hotel each night where, to fend off boredom, together they weave the sisters' family story.

  The legend of the women's grandmother, one of a long line of Camilas in the family, and her tumultuous marriage to Francisco, a gambler, is told, revised and out-and-out fabricated on the spot. Using family lore and their own powers of embellishment, the girls trump each other in weaving an involved story of the elder Camila.

  Even David becomes caught up in the weaving and creates a story from the blank slate of Francisco's life. His own story is one of more vivid imaginings. Women in his tale are brash. The gamblers are vigorous and uninhibited.

  Whereas the story-within-a-story that emerges here presents some undeniable insights about the sisters and their search for some fulfillment, never do we have any idea of David's own true story.

  The enigmatic David — solicitous in every other way to the sisters as they continue on their journey — remains mysterious, his own version of the fable the only crumbs of any clues about his own history.

  Márgara compares the threesome to the "characters on the road to Canterbury," as the three embark on their many journeys — via both Jeep and storytelling.

  The sisters' stories intersect where reality emerges and underscore their differences where hyperbole and fantasy, even magical realism, takes hold.

  The escapism of the storytelling and the relief it provides for their boredom cannot keep them from the ugly realities of life in Cambodia. The travelers are confronted with child-victims of landmines. The sad truth lends some hint about David's past and his reasons for spending so much time in the jungles of Cambodia. He is, in fact, searching for a missing sister.

  The novel highlights the important question all readers ask of literary fiction: What is the meaning? For these three characters the question becomes — where is the meaning? Through the temples of Angkor in the ruins of Cambodia, they wend their way, each following the maps of unfulfilled dreams and unfinished stories.

  By novel's end, we are left with the threads of stories not knotted cleanly. A bath-robed Márgara relaxes with the gloomy companionship of an old movie on television. She drowses there and dreams. The doorbell rings. Is it the dream? Has her mind conjured it along with the details of the grandmother's sordid life? Or is the interruption real? Is it David behind the door?

  Published in late 2008 for the first time in English by San Antonio's Wings Press, A Tuesday Like Today is translated from the Spanish by Clare E. Sullivan, who retains the easy fluidity of the original 2004 Spanish publication, which helped Urbina win the Premio Coatlicue 2008, an award inspired by the work of Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska given by the Mexico City newspaper El Universal.

  It isn't difficult to understand why the author was honored. The novel is smart. Urbina has obviously painstakingly researched the history of Cambodia. But the novel makes this foreign country an easy backdrop for us to move through with these three characters searching, if not for meaning, then for a meaningful interpretation of the next dream.

  ———

  (Yvette Benavides is a professor of English at Our Lady of the Lake University.)

• MyShelf.com2009

  In a country that has been ravaged by horrible atrocities and is filled with ancient mysteries and ruins, three travelers, sharing a common destination, will converge and meet in The Grand Hotel's lobby. Angor Thom and the ancient temples of Cambodia await David Masters-Iturbe and the two sisters Margara and Camila. They each possess a treasure trove of stories to share and help pass the long hours when they are not off exploring the jungles and the temples within them. Magara starts the storytelling with the tale of their grandmother, Camila Fuentes Ogarrio, and how she met and became infatuated with Francisco Videgaray, a very bad poet with a fiendishly seductive gaze. David sums up their storytelling with a tale of his half-sister Thary, who, before they ever met, already knew everything about him thanks to his secret-keeping mother.

  In A Tuesday Like Today, one finds an intriguing tale and a wonderful way to spend a few hours wrapped up in a blanket on the couch or in your favorite chair. I enjoyed this interesting tale and truly believe it was worth a year of translating. Anyone who is ready for a rainy day read should put this on their "to be read" pile.