Errant Destinations

In nine personal essays that blur the line between fiction and non-fiction, Andrea Jeftanovic explores border regions with a luminous, perceptive voice, covering diverse sociohistorical contexts including the Balkan wars, the border between Chile and Peru, Clarice Lispector’s Brazil, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and 1970s California.

Errant Destinations is a collection of nine literary chronicles in which contemporary Chilean-Jewish author Andrea Jeftanovic reflects on travel in its multiple variations, with reference to diverse fields of study, including references to cinema, literature, and the visual arts. Jeftanovic transforms travel into an art form, inviting the reader to participate in literary and geographical encounters in foreign places such as the tunnel that unites Sarajevo bombarded during the Balkan War; the diffuse maritime delineation between Chile and Peru; an organization for relatives of victims of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; the hidden corners of Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector’s characters; the hotel room in Cienfuegos where Castro stayed in two distinct historical moments; and 1970s California, where the author endeavors to find Janis Joplin. Combining chronicle with fiction and testimony, the author employs a perceptive and personal gaze that reveals an extraordinary capacity to explore and reveal the many facets and recesses of the human psyche.