Ice for Martians: Hielo Para Marcianos

Claudia Ulloa Donoso’s collection brings together characters whose sense of being out of place takes different forms: geography, social circumstances, fear, religious identity, or a perspective that sets them apart from those around them. The description points to stories including “Alarm,” where an abusive relationship shapes the narrator’s perception of ordinary sounds and moments, and “The Transfiguration of Melina,” centered on a religious teenager’s changing relationship to her sexuality. Across these examples, alienation is not a single condition but a lens through which characters experience their surroundings and themselves.