Gonzalez, Xochitl: Olga Dies Dreaming

A blazing new talent debuts with the story of a status-driven wedding planner grappling with her absent mother, her glittering career among New York's elite and her Puerto Rican roots in the wake of Hurricane Maria. It's 2017, and Olga and her brother, Pedro 'Prieto' Acevedo, are bold-faced names in their hometown of New York. Prieto is a popular congressman representing their gentrifying, Latinx neighbourhood in Brooklyn, while Olga is the wedding planner for Manhattan's power brokers. Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy. Sure, Olga can orchestr ate the love stories of the one percent, but she can't seem to find her own . . . until she meets Matteo, who forces her to confront the effects of long-held family secrets. Twenty-seven years ago, their mother, Blanca, a Young Lord-turnedradical, abandoned her children to advance a militant political cause, leaving them to be raised by their grandmother. Now, with the winds of hurricane season, Blanca has come barrelling back into their lives. Set against the backdrop of New York City in the months surrounding the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico's history, Olga Dies Dreaming is a story that examines political corruption, familial strife and the very notion of the American dream - all while asking what it really means to weather a storm.