Stranger: A Novel

by David Bergen

The reader sees the world through the eyes of Íso, a young Guatemalan woman who works at a fertility clinic in the highlands of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas and is the secret lover of the married American resident doctor. But their tryst is short-lived, and he disappears back to the US before Íso can disclose her pregnancy. After the birth of her daughter, the baby is taken from her and Íso is informed that her child is in America. She makes her way north, eventually crossing illegally into a United States that has become increasingly divided between rich and poor. Travelling without documentation and with little money, Íso descends into a world full of danger and mistrust, determined to reclaim her child.

With its themes of dislocation and disruption, of power and vulnerability, Stranger is a powerfully resonant political novel for our times.