Author Luis Jaramillo answers the curious question: are there witches in El Paso? From his belief, there is a sort of shift here in the borderland. Jaramillo said there is magic in the city that is unique in a way that sparked him to write about El Paso.

The novel “The Witches of El Paso” roots from his family lineage.

“When I first started writing the novel, I was reworking family stories from my El Paso relatives, not thinking that magic would enter into the narrative, to write about the uniqueness of life in El Paso and what it’s like to live on the border of the U.S and Mexico, it made sense to include supernatural elements,” said Jaramillo.

The Witches of El Paso centers around, Nena an 18-year-old in WWII in El Paso who prays to be freed from having to take care of her sisters’ infants. One night, a nun appears, moving Nena across the borders of time and space to join a coven in Colonial Mexico. The second main character is Marta, a mother and lawyer facing middle age. The novel begins when Nena, now 90 years old, asks Marta for her help finding the daughter she left in the past.

While the book features the supernatural, Jaramillo said it is a coming-of-age story as well.

“Both Marta and Nena… they pass from one stage of life to another; they have to pay a price for the wisdom they gain. This is also a book about inheritance. What is it that we get from our people? What do we give to those that come after us? And ultimately, I think of The Witches of El Paso as a book about waking up to the force of creativity that’s in all of us,” said Jaramillo.

The border may be a symbol of division for some, but Jaramillo said that borders are a motif of the different shifts in our culture. “The book is about different kinds of borders, including the literal border between the U.S and Mexico,” said Jaramillo. “In the novel, I write that this border, like all borders, is an imaginary line. That said, every time I’ve gone to Juarez, I’ve felt a shift—the light seems to change, and the smells and sounds are different than they are in El Paso. In the novel, I write about other kinds of borders, like the border between life and death, the border between one stage of life and another.”

With raving reviews, the portrayal of El Paso is attracting readers from the city; mixing both the magic of the borderland and the supernatural.

Dominique Macias is staff photographer and may be reached at [email protected]