From the streets of Paris to the shrines of Santa Muerte in Mexico City, here is a journey not for the faint of heart. In Mexican writer Ana Clavel’s novel A Brief Treatise of the Heart the destinies of strangers intersect: a woman who must see the Taj Mahal before dying, a man who after a heart attack decides he can’t return to his former life, the soul of a young woman mistakenly killed by the narcos that wanders through the city looking for traces of her past, and the woman’s killer who relates what has brought him to such a horrific life. These different voices relate the enigma of desire and its shadow. Their story is interspersed with some 40 original illustrations, along with numerous asides – myths and micro-fictions, historical and medical information – describing this greatest and most conflicting of symbols: the human heart. Originally published as Breve tratado del corazón (Mexico City, Alfaguara: 2019). “The stories of the four characters interlace with each other like the arteries of this vital organ.” El Sol de México “An architecture of graphic, anatomical, historical, poetic and mythological curiosities…” Milenio “Ana Clavel writes in high voltage…bringing to light what resides in shadow.” María Baranda “A book that well understands the present era, with its contradictions, suffering and senselessness.” La Zona Sucia “A polyphonic novel.” La Jornada Zacatecas “Brilliant, a disquieting gravity and magnetism.” Juan José Reyes . “Ana Clavel’s writing is as enveloping as it is frightening. Her talents are poetic, her narrative strength that of a fabulist, a chimera.” Mónica Lavín “The literature of Ana Clavel consists of questions more than absolute answers, humbled before the mysteries of prohibited desires that have tormented humanity since its origin.” Ana García Bergua