Valeria Luiselli, Ricardo Giraldo & Leo Heiblum: Echoes from the Borderlands

A publication chronicling a new sound art project led by the bestselling author of Lost Children Archive and The Story of My Teeth, Valeria Luiselli, with Ricardo Giraldo and Leo Heiblum

Echoes from the Borderlands is a timely, poignant exploration of the US–Mexico border, its flora, fauna and mix of urban and natural landscapes. In this series of sound studies, Valeria Luiselli, Ricardo Giraldo and Leo Heiblum deploy deep research and multiple sonic layers—field recordings, archival materials, interviews and deft compositional choices—to examine issues such as genocide, reproductive rights, environmental destruction and more. In Study One: Call You When I Get Home, readers are taken on a journey from the Pacific Ocean near San Diego and Tijuana to West Texas, encountering Indigenous peoples, tourists, miners, historical reenactors and contemporary thinkers, along with a chorus of imagined personas who provide insightful commentary along the way. Readers can engage with this sonic documentary-fiction through the libretto featured in this chapbook and, for an immersive experience, listen to the audio via an embedded QR code.