Andrea Chapela one of Grantas Best Young SpanishLanguage Novelists of 2021 breaks down literary and scientific conventions in this prizewinning collection of experimental essays exploring the properties and poetics of glass mirrors and light as a means of understanding the self.ampampamp160In powerful formally inventive essays The Visible Unseen disrupts the purported cultural divide between arts and science. As both a chemist and an awardwinning author Chapela zeros in on the literary metaphors buried in the facts and figures of her scientific observations. Through questioning scientific conundrums that lie beyond the limits of human perception she winds up putting herself under the microscope as well.While considering the technical definition of glass as a liquid or a solid Chapela stumbles upon a framework for understanding the inbetweenness of her own life.