{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20260417T232332Z","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/0385546661?tag=bookfrontier-20","asin":"0385546661","authors":["Ingrid Rojas Contreras"],"book_id":"9780385546669","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/the-man-who-could-move-clouds-0385546661","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780385546669.jpg?v=20260417T232332Z%3A2026-04-17T23%3A23%3A32Z","description":"PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • From the bestselling author of Fruit of the Drunken Tree , comes a dazzling, kaleidoscopic memoir reclaiming her family's otherworldly legacy. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: TIME, NPR, VULTURE, PEOPLE, BOSTON GLOBE, VANITY FAIR, ESQUIRE , & MORE “Rojas Contreras reacquaints herself with her family’s past, weaving their stories with personal narrative, unraveling legacies of violence, machismo and colonialism… In the process, she has written a spellbinding and genre-defying ancestral history.”— New York Times Book Review For Ingrid Rojas Contreras, magic runs in the family. Raised amid the political violence of 1980s and '90s Colombia, in a house bustling with her mother’s fortune-telling clients, she was a hard child to surprise. Her maternal grandfather, Nono, was a renowned curandero, a community healer gifted with what the family called “the secrets”: the power to talk to the dead, tell the future, treat the sick, and move the clouds. And as the first woman to inherit “the secrets,” Rojas Contreras’ mother was just as powerful. Mami delighted in her ability to appear in two places at once, and she could cast out even the most persistent spirits with nothing more than a glass of water. This legacy had always felt like it belonged to her mother and grandfather, until, while living in the U.S. in her twenties, Rojas Contreras suffered a head injury that left her with amnesia. As she regained partial memory, her family was excited to tell her that this had happened before: Decades ago Mami had taken a fall that left her with amnesia, too. And when she recovered, she had gained access to “the secrets.” In 2012, spurred by a shared dream among Mami and her sisters, and her own powerful urge to relearn her family history in the aftermath of her memory loss, Rojas Contreras joins her mother on a journey to Colombia to disinter Nono’s remains. With Mami as her unpredictable, stubborn, and often amusing guide, Rojas Contreras traces her lineage back to her Indigenous and Spanish roots, uncovering the violent and rigid colonial narrative that would eventually break her mestizo family into two camps: those who believe “the secrets” are a gift, and those who are convinced they are a curse. Interweaving family stories more enchanting than those in any novel, resurrected Colombian history, and her own deeply personal reckonings with the bounds of reality, Rojas Contreras writes her way through the incomprehensible and into her inheritance. The result is a luminous testament to the power of storytelling as a healing art and an invitation to embrace the extraordinary.","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9780385546669","publication_date":"20220712","publisher":"Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group","slug":"the-man-who-could-move-clouds","subtitle":"A Memoir","title":"The Man Who Could Move Clouds"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"BIO002030","confidence_band":"high","label":"Hispanic & Latino Biography","score":0.792,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"YAF046060","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Caribbean & Latin America for Teens","score":0.7474,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"YAF046140","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Hispanic & Latino YA","score":0.7367,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"BIO002030","confidence_band":"high","label":"Hispanic & Latino Biography","score":0.792,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"YAF046060","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Caribbean & Latin America for Teens","score":0.7474,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"YAF046140","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Hispanic & Latino YA","score":0.7367,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"BIO002030","confidence_band":"high","label":"Hispanic & Latino Biography","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"BIO022000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Women's Lives","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"BIO026000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Personal Memoirs","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"Hispanic & Latino Biography","score":0.792,"slug":"hispanic-latino-biography"},{"label":"Caribbean & Latin America for Teens","score":0.7474,"slug":"caribbean-latin-america-for-teens"},{"label":"Hispanic & Latino YA","score":0.7367,"slug":"hispanic-latino-ya"}],"reader_fit":["Good for readers who enjoy Hispanic & Latino Biography","Good for readers interested in book club","Good for fans of Memoir"],"related_lists":[{"intro":"","slug":"shelf-bio002030-hispanic-latino-biography-autobiography","title":"Hispanic & Latino Biography & Autobiography Books","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/lists/shelf-bio002030-hispanic-latino-biography-autobiography"}],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Quiara Alegría Hudes"],"book_id":"9780399590061","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780399590061.jpg?v=20260417T232332Z%3A2026-04-17T23%3A23%3A32Z","score":17.5439,"title":"My Broken Language","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780399590061"},{"authors":["Jean Guerrero"],"book_id":"9780399592393","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780399592393.jpg?v=20260417T232332Z%3A2026-04-17T23%3A23%3A32Z","score":12.7824,"title":"Crux","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780399592393"},{"authors":["Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez"],"book_id":"9781250277954","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781250277954.jpg?v=20260417T232332Z%3A2026-04-17T23%3A23%3A32Z","score":12.7467,"title":"My Side of the River","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781250277954"},{"authors":["Javier Zamora"],"book_id":"9780593498064","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780593498064.jpg?v=20260417T232332Z%3A2026-04-17T23%3A23%3A32Z","score":12.7357,"title":"Solito: a Read With Jenna Pick","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780593498064"},{"authors":["Reyna Grande","Sandra Cisneros"],"book_id":"9781451661781","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781451661781.jpg?v=20260417T232332Z%3A2026-04-17T23%3A23%3A32Z","score":12.7223,"title":"The Distance Between US","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781451661781"},{"authors":["Erika L. Sánchez","Penguin Audio"],"book_id":"9780593296950","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780593296950.jpg?v=20260417T232332Z%3A2026-04-17T23%3A23%3A32Z","score":12.6056,"title":"Crying in the Bathroom","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780593296950"},{"authors":["Nikki Vargas"],"book_id":"9781335455093","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781335455093.jpg?v=20260417T232332Z%3A2026-04-17T23%3A23%3A32Z","score":11.9036,"title":"Call You When I Land","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781335455093"},{"authors":["Lynn Joseph"],"book_id":"9780064472043","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780064472043.jpg?v=20260417T232332Z%3A2026-04-17T23%3A23%3A32Z","score":11.2022,"title":"The Color of My Words","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780064472043"}],"topics":[{"evidence_refs":["keyword:philosophy books"],"label":"Philosophy","score":0.1142,"slug":"philosophy"},{"evidence_refs":["phrase_map_match"],"label":"Book Club","score":0.0914,"slug":"book-club"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:biography"],"label":"Biography","score":0.088,"slug":"biography"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:hispanic authors"],"label":"Authors","score":0.0633,"slug":"authors"}],"what_you_get":["Themes: Philosophy, Book Club, Biography.","Reading lane: Hispanic & Latino Biography and Caribbean & Latin America for Teens.","Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group."]},"llm_signals":null,"source_presence":{"amazon":true,"book_detail":true,"goodreads":true,"llm_signals":false,"similarity_seed":true},"stats":{"amazon_ratings_count":397,"goodreads_ratings_count":4628,"goodreads_reviews_count":605,"quality_score":0.9593}}