Gringas, the debut novel fromFiction alum Manola Gonzalez Rosillo '19 has sold her debut novel, Gringas, to Bloomsbury for publication in 2028. The novel moves between the past and present, exploring the sacred bond between grandmother and granddaughter while navigating questions of class privilege, family loyalty, and assimilation.
Rosillo took to Instagram to share the news of her upcoming publication. “Shout out to baby Manola who didn’t want to be a novelist because the lifestyle seemed too depressing—she was RIGHT," shared Rosillo in the caption of her post. Another special shout out to the people who held me through every month rewriting this thing for the last 10 years, my family group chat for the title inspo, @jwongbaxter for letting abuela haunt her dreams, and @jillianramirez for loving this psychopath of a protagonist.”
Among the photos shared in Rosillo's post is one taken on Columbia campus. She is holding a draft of the very novel that is now set to be published. Writing Gringas has been a long and passionate process. Rosillo shared, “I had to learn that the messiness I desperately wanted to avoid was the process. Over the years, I've written four novels—but for me, they were all different attempts at Gringas. Finally, one of them worked.”
Rosillo is a Mexican-Spanish-American writer originally from San Diego, California. She is a Reese’s Book Club LitUp Fellowship Finalist and Columbia MFA grad, where she received the Fondation Femme Debut scholarship and the Writing Program scholarship. She has been published by The Bare Life Review, Columbia Magazine, Philadelphia Magazine and Longreads.
