When Las linternas flotantes (Floating Lanterns) was first published, in 2009, Mercedes Roffe explained that the book was "a reaction to things that left us speechless: September 11, Argentina's economic debacle that led to long months of national and individual hardship and incertitude, the tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and so many things that seemed to come together in just a few years, things that were so disastrous for the whole world." Like Jeremiah, the prophet of the Book of Lamentations, who mourns the destruction of Jerusalem through the use of acrostics, dirge and communal lament, Roffe, of Sephardic Jewish origins, attends to these "things that left us speechless" through elegy and meditation.

Translated by: Anna Deeny