Terrestre: Time as a Stratum and Imagination as a Material Possibility of the Present

“Everything Is Always Bidding Farewell in One Way Or Another”

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.48162/rev.34.128

Keywords:

geological uchronia, geological writings, deep time, Capitalocene

Abstract

This article analyzes Terrestre (2025) by Cristina Rivera Garza in dialogue with her previous works Geological Writings (Escrituras geológicas, 2022) and Liliana’s Invincible Summer (El invencible verano de Liliana, 2021), paying particular attention to the ways in which the book responds to what Mark Fisher identifies as a crisis of contemporary imagination. Through a close reading of four stories, the essay examines the relationship between body, territory, deep time, community, and nonhuman life. It argues that Rivera Garza displaces the question of the future toward what I call geological uchronia: a material exploration of the present in which writing functions as a practice of excavation, reactivation, and resistance in the face of the Capitalocene devastation.

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References

Baudoin Terán, M. (2025). Autobiographical Writings in Multitude: Disobedience, Art, and Thought in The Creative Laboratories of Four Contemporary Latin American Writers [Carolina Maria de Jesus, Matilde Casazola, Violeta Parra, and Cristina Rivera Garza] [Tesis doctoral]. Universidad de Oregon.

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Paz Soldán, E. (6 de febrero de 2026). El tiempo profundo de Cristina Rivera Garza. Edmundo Paz Soldán.

Rivera Garza, C. (2021). El invencible verano de Liliana. Mantis.

Rivera Garza, C. (2022). Escrituras geológicas (Vol. 14). Iberoamericana.

Rivera Garza, C. (2025). Terrestre. Penguin Random House.

Rodrigo, J. (9 de mayo de 2025). Presentación del libro Terrestre de Cristina Rivera Garza [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S9Mv3XMikE

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Yániz, M. S. (s. f.). Con Cristina Rivera Garza al tiempo profundo de la escritura. Tierra Adentro. https://tierraadentro.fondodeculturaeconomica.com/con-cristina-rivera-garza-al-tiempo-profundo-de-la-escritura/

Published

25-06-2026

How to Cite

[1]
Baudoin, M. 2026. Terrestre: Time as a Stratum and Imagination as a Material Possibility of the Present: “Everything Is Always Bidding Farewell in One Way Or Another”. Cuadernos del CILHA. 44 (Jun. 2026), 1–11. DOI:https://doi.org/10.48162/rev.34.128.