‘The Man Who Could Move Clouds’

Ingrid Rojas Contreras’s nonlinear book begins with a disclosure that both she and her mother, who are otherwise similar as well, separately experienced accident-related amnesias earlier in their lives, and she goes on to unspool what led up to the memory loss, as well as the loss itself, with close attention. She writes, “Amnesia was like living at the world’s edge. Majestic, and incredibly lonely. You can’t cuddle up to the end of the earth.” Storytelling, particularly the stories we tell ourselves about our individual and collective memories, is an important theme of The Man Who Could Move Clouds. The author plumbs her Colombian family’s history, divulged through oral accounts, along with cultural legends. Rojas Contreras’s maternal grandfather was a curandero, or traditional healer, and she and her mother also have gifts in this regard—in these pages, intuition, folklore, and the supernatural fuse with empirical observation. This critically acclaimed memoir was deservedly a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award; once you come under its hypnotic spell, you’ll understand why.

AUTHOR INGRID ROJAS CONTRERAS IN CONVERSATION WITH JOHN FREEMAN

When: Thursday, December 17, 2026, 5 p.m. Pacific time.
Format: Freeman will lead a free hour-long conversation with Rojas Contreras, which will include a reading by the author and questions from the audience. Produced by Alta Journal for streaming on Zoom.