Exclusive Cover Reveal: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s “Catalina”

Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover for the novel Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, which will be published by One World on June 18th 2024. Preorder the book here.

A year in the life of the unforgettable Catalina Ituralde, a wickedly wry and heartbreakingly vulnerable student at an elite college, forced to navigate an opaque past, an uncertain future, tragedies on two continents, and the tantalizing possibilities of love and freedom.

When Catalina is admitted to Harvard, it feels like the fulfilment of destiny: a miracle child escapes death in Latin America, moves to Queens to be raised by her undocumented grandparents, and becomes one of the chosen. But nothing is simple for Catalina, least of all her own complicated, contradictory, ruthlessly probing mind. Now a senior, she faces graduation to a world that has no place for the undocumented; her sense of doom intensifies her curiosities and desires. She infiltrates the school’s elite subcultures—internships and literary journals, posh parties and secret societies—which she observes with the eye of an anthropologist and an interloper’s skepticism: she is both fascinated and repulsed. Craving a great romance, Catalina finds herself drawn to a fellow student, an actual budding anthropologist eager to teach her about the Latin American world she was born into but never knew, even as her life back in Queens begins to unravel. And every day, the clock ticks closer to the abyss of life after graduation. Can she save her family? Can she save herself? What does it mean to be saved? 

Brash and daring, part campus novel, part hagiography, part pop song, Catalina is unlike any coming-of-age novel you’ve ever read—and Catalina, bright and tragic, circled by a nimbus of chaotic energy, driven by a wild heart, is a character you will never forget.

Here is the cover, designed by Grace Han.

Author Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: “I love this cover because it feels timeless and serious and that pairs nicely with the novel which makes a point to be unserious. It also reminds me of the design of old F. Scott Fitzgerald book covers which is terrific because I love him and hope to replace him soon.

The eye represents looking and being looked at, looking at yourself being looked at, the gaze, the tension between being an object and being a subject, desire and longing. Many of the non-fiction pieces I’ve written in the past few years have been accompanied by an unrelated picture of a sad, young brown child with large dark eyes just looking sad. It’s a different child each time and I never know who they are, that’s just the art that accompanies my essays. So I thought, what if the little brown girl in the corner of all the photos of war and such, what if she grew up to write a book that showed she was looking the entire time? Looking, and remembering everything. Remembering names.”

Designer Grace Han: “I was ecstatic to be given the opportunity to create a visual introduction to Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s work. As a child of immigrants, I saw myself in Catalina—in her desperation to distance herself from family and in her desire for self discovery. I wanted the cover to give us a sense of hope in addition to giving us an intimate peek into Catalina’s life as she attempts to find her place in between worlds. I hope this cover captures the poignancy and profoundness of Catalina.“