Enrique Salanic

José lives with his mother in Guatemala: a tough life in one of the world's most dangerous, religious, and impoverished countries. José is her youngest and favorite child, and her life is going to church and selling sandwiches. He spends his days on crowded buses and in the streets delivering food. Resigned and aloof, in free moments he plays with his phone and looks for random sex. When he meets Luis, José is thrust into a dimension of passion and pain and self-reflection that was previously unimaginable.

On a perilous journey north, a Guatemalan farmer risks everything to secure a future for his family, as past and present collide in a story of survival, memory, and sacrifice.

This beautifully integrated, multi-threaded narrative seamlessly interweaves six stories set in radically different locations across Central America, ranging from the tropical forests of Guatemala to the skyscrapers of Panama City. When a solar storm leaves the region without power, myriad dramas unfold over the course of five days during which all conveniences of modernity are stripped away. In Costa Rica, a pastor and his daughter worry for the future of their church, while in El Salvador, a grandmother and grandson make an arduous journey into the city. A husband and wife reconnect in Honduras, as a young couple nurses a mysterious stranger back to health in Guatemala. Meanwhile, in Nicaragua, a young woman prepares for her quinceañera and in Panama, a housekeeper grows exasperated with her demanding employer.

Two volcanologists visit indigenous communities to warn and evacuate them from the fire mountain range where a new volcano is forming. It’s at this time that they begin to uncover the corruption behind the country and its government, and how these ethnic communities are not a priority for the powers that be.