A selection of novels by contemporary Latine authors. One book is displayed per author. Additional works by the author can be found by searching the library catalog.
Juliet Takes a Breath by
Juliet Milagros Palante is leaving the Bronx and headed to Portland, Oregon. She just came out to her family and isn't sure if her mom will ever speak to her again. But Juliet has a plan, sort of, one that's going to help her figure out this whole "Puerto Rican lesbian" thing. She's interning with the author of her favorite book: Harlowe Brisbane, the ultimate authority on feminism, women's bodies, and other gay-sounding stuff. Will Juliet be able to figure out her life over the course of one magical summer? Is that even possible? Or is she running away from all the problems that seem too big to handle?
Monastery by
In Monastery, the nomadic narrator of Eduardo Halfon's critically-acclaimed The Polish Boxer returns to travel from Guatemalan cities, villages, coffee plantations, and border towns to a private jazz concert in New York's Harlem, a former German U-Boat base on the French Breton coast, and Israel, where he escapes from his sister's Orthodox Jewish wedding into an erotic adventure with the enigmatic Tamara. His passing encounters are unforgettable; his relationships, problematic.
The Poet X: A Novel by
Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours her frustration onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers - especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class. With Mami's determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself.
The Body Where I Was Born by
The first novel to appear in English by one of the most talked-about and critically acclaimed writers of new Mexican fiction. From a psychoanalyst's couch, the narrator looks back on her bizarre childhood--in which she was born with an abnormality in her eye into a family intent on fixing it. In a world without the time and space for innocence, the narrator intimately recalls her younger self--a fierce and discerning girl open to life's pleasures and keen to its ruthless cycle of tragedy.
Conversations by
Daily conversations in outdoor cafés with cultured friends can help make reality a little more real. Unfortunately, however, during one such conversation, one man spots a gold Rolex watch on a TV soap opera's goatherd. This seemingly small absurdity sets off alarms: strange sensations of deception, distress, and incipient madness. The two men's uneasiness soon becomes a nightmare as the TV adventure advances with a real-life plot--involving a mutant strain of killer algae--to take over the world!"
Before by
Part bildungsroman, part ghost story, part revenge novel, Before tells the story of a woman who returns to the landscape of her childhood to overcome the fear that held her captive as a girl. This powerful exploration of the path to womanhood and lost innocence won Mexico's two most prestigious literary prizes.
Signs Preceding the End of the World by
Herrera does not simply write about the border between Mexico and the United States and those who cross it. He explores the crossings and translations people make in their minds and language as they move from one country to another, especially when there's no going back. Traversing this lonely territory is Makina, a young woman who knows only too well how to survive in a violent, macho world. Leaving behind her life in Mexico to search for her brother, she is smuggled into the US carrying a pair of secret messages--one from her mother and one from the Mexican underworld.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by
Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fukœ-the curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim.
Norte by
This is a story of three destinies separated by time and space but connected through violence, banishment, creativity, and madness; three misplaced lives at the crossing of worlds and borders that characterize our era.
Mas Alla de las Mascaras by
Cristina narrates her life, providing readers with a true female perspective rather than showing events through a phallocentric lens. The protagonist discusses taboo topics—including sensuality, menstruation, pregnancy, and abortion—with stark realism, anger, and rebellion, which is in direct contrast to the poetic euphemisms and illusions used in the masculine world that dominated literature at the time.
The Sound of Things Falling by
No sooner does he get to know Ricardo Laverde than disaffected young Colombian lawyer Antonio Yammara realizes that his new friend has a secret, or rather several secrets. Antonio's fascination with the life of ex-pilot Ricardo Laverde begins by casual acquaintance in a seedy Bogotá billiard hall and grows until the day Ricardo receives a cassette tape in an unmarked envelope. Asking Antonio to find him somewhere private to play it, they go to a library. The first time he glances up from his seat in the next booth, Antonio sees tears running down Laverde's cheeks; the next, the ex-pilot has gone.
Parts: A Novel by
The novel's narrator, an auto parts stocker and driver unable to quit his job out of a sense of obligation to his family, seeks out the written word as a means to escape, which contrasts sharply with the pelado environment where he works and allows for a closer inspection of the pelado archetype inside the walls of the warehouse.
Bless Me, Ultima by
Ultima, a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic, comes to Antonio Marez's New Mexico family when he is six years old, and she helps him discover himself in the magical secrets of the pagan past.
Sea Monsters by 
Ornamental by
A scientist recruits volunteers for the trial of a new recreational drug that exclusively affects women. Among them is “Number 4,” who becomes emotionally involved with first the scientist and then his wife, a well-known visual artist in the midst of a creative crisis. The scientist is oblivious to the atrocities his new drug will bring to the city; his wife is oblivious to the superfluousness of the objects she has made her life's work exhibiting in galleries and museums.
The Magic of Blood by
Pulled-from working class life, these stories captures the texture of the Southwest's working class in clear, ironic, and bitingly realistic fiction about regular people going about their complex lives.
Ways of Going Home by
The writer son of a quiet sympathizer with the Pinochet regime reflects on the progress of his novel, in which an unnamed boy from a Chilean suburb witnesses an earthquake and meets an older girl who asks him to spy on her uncle.
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by
Reality merges with fantasy in this hilarious comic novel about the world of radio soap operas and the pitfalls of forbidden passion by the bestselling author of The Storyteller. Sexy, sophisticated, older Aunt Julia, now divorced, seeks a new mate who can support her in high style. She finds instead her libidinous nephew, and their affair shocks both family and community.
All Night Movie by 
Mexican Gothic by
After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region.
Conquistadora by
Drawn to the island of Puerto Rico by the diaries of an ancestor who traveled there with Ponce de León, Ana Cubillas becomes involved with enamored twin brothers Ramón and Inocente before convincing them to claim a sugar plantation they have inherited.
Diana: The Goddess Who Hunts Alone by
Fuentes' novel recounts a 1970 love affair between a Mexican writer and a North American movie actress against the backdrop of FBI political repression and its brutal consequences.
Season of Ash by
Jorge Volpi's international bestseller Season of Ash puts a human face on the earth-shaking events of the late twentieth century: the Chernobyl disaster, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of Soviet communism and the rise of the Russian oligarchs, the cascading collapse of developing economies, and the near-miraculous scientific advances of the Human Genome Project. Told through the intertwined lives of three women--Inna, a Soviet biologist; Eva, a Hungarian computer scientist; and Jennifer, an American economist--this novel-of-ideas is part detective novel, part scientific investigation, and part journalistic expose, with a dark, destructive love story at its center.
La Verdadera Historia de Malinche by
A woman who played an active and powerful role in the Spanish conquest of Mexico, Malinche was an interpreter, advisor, and intermediary for Hernán Cortés. She was also a mistress to Cortés and gave birth to his first son Martín Cortés. It is through the letters from mother to son, that the author constructs this vivid tale about the woman behind the myth.
The End of the Story by
When Diana Glass witnesses Leonora's abduction from a street in Buenos Aires, she despairs that her friend has joined the ranks of los desaparecidos, the missing ones. She begins to write the story of their friendship, but certain memories, details and whispered allegations about Leonora's fate consistently intrude. Leonora was born to drink life down to the bottom of the glass. But, Diana wonders, is that necessarily a virtue?
Ines of My Soul by
Born into a poor Spanish family in the sixteenth century, Inés leaves Spain for the New World to find her missing husband. There she discovers that he's been killed and soon begins a love affair with Pedro de Valdivia, a war hero and field marshall to Francisco Pizarro. Together Inés and Pedro build the new city of Santiago and wage a bloody, ruthless war against the native Chileans.
Latin Moon in Manhattan by
Latin Moon in Manhattan paints a vivid portrait of New York City as the land of El Dorado for today's Latino immigrants. From Little Colombia in Queens to the street life of Times Square, this brilliant novel is crowded with an extraordinary cast of characters: Hot Sauce, a midget hooker; Simon Bolivar, a parrot who croons Julio Iglesias songs; the Urrutias, a family rich from cocaine smuggling; Santiago Martinez, a loner and would-be poet whose ancient cat, Mr. O'Donnell, is slowly dying of an enlarged heart. Exploding with a profusion of plots and subplots involving drug smuggling, romance, and the literary politics of Queens.
Seeing Red by
Seeing Red describes a young Chilean writer recently relocated to New York for doctoral work who suffers a stroke which leaves her blind. It charts her journey through hospitals and an increased dependency on those closest to her to cope. Fiction and autobiography intertwine in an intense, visceral, and caustic novel about the relation between the body, science, and human relationships.
The African Shore by
he African Shore marks a major new installment in the genre of dystopic travel fiction. Rodrigo Rey Rosa, prominent in today's Guatemalan literary world and an author of growing international reputation, presents a tale of alienation, misrecognition, and intrigue set in and around Tangier. He weaves a double narrative involving a Colombian tourist pleasurably stranded in Morocco and a young shepherd who dreams of migrating to Spain and of riches to come.
Dreaming in Cuban by
A vivid and funny first novel about three generations of a Cuban family divided by conflicting loyalties over the Cuban revolution, set in the world of Havana in the 1970s and '80s and in an emigre neighborhood of Brooklyn. It is a story of immense charm about women and politics, women and witchcraft, women and their men.
Goldenboy by
Gay attorney Henry Rios, hero of Nava's previous The Little Death, appears here for the first time in hardcover, venturing from the Bay Area to Los Angeles to solve a series of grisly murders in a fast-paced novel that is as troubling as it is entertaining. When a gay teenager is arrested for the murder of a co-worker, who threatened to expose his homosexuality, Rios is called to L.A. by Larry Ross, a close friend and fellow lawyer who is dying of AIDS; too ill to rise to the boy's defense himself, Ross asks Rios to 'balance the accounts' by preserving the accused murderer's life in exchange for Ross's own.
Face of an Angel by
A waitress writes a handbook on waiting at tables. It is called The Book of Service and is based on her 30-year career in a Mexican restaurant in the southwest of the country. In it she meditates on the meaning of service--at work as well as in her own life--and on the role of women in a male-dominated culture. By the author of The Last of the Menu Girls.
The Madonnas of Echo Park by
A novel that explores the lives of those who shed their ethnic identity in pursuit of the American dream highlights a different character in each chapter, including Hector, a middle-aged day laborer who witnesses a murder, and his ex-wife Felicia, who survives a drive-by shooting.
The Revolutionaries Try Again by
Extravagant, absurd, and self-aware, The Revolutionaries Try Again plays out against the lost decade of Ecuador's austerity and the stymied idealism of three childhood friendsan expat, a bureaucrat, and a playwrightwho are as sure about the evils of dictatorship as they are unsure of everything else, including each other.
Never Too Real by
Cat, Magda, Gabi, and Luz. They've helped each other up the ladder with unshakable encouragement--and raw honesty--since forever. But lately, trouble is throwing everything these formidable women thought they knew into doubt. When outspoken Cat's high-flying T.V. career crashes and burns, she's got to figure out which dream she wants to keep alive the most--her own, or someone else's.
Caramelo: or, Puro Cuento : a Novel by
During her family's annual car trip from Chicago to Mexico City, Lala Reyes listens to stories about her family, including her grandmother, the descendant of a renowned dynasty of shawl makers, whose magnificent striped shawl has come into Lala's possession.
Let the Wind Speak by
The archetypal Onetti hero, Medina is at different times of his life a (phoney) doctor, a painter and a police chief. He lives in Lavanda, across the river from Santa Maria, a town he is not allowed to enter and that he, therefore, wishes to destroy. In the end the wind speaks with devastating effect. The first novel written in exile in Spain, Let the Wind Speak is Onetti coming to terms with his exclusion from the Santa Maria of his childhood, his first sexual conquests, his first cigarettes, his first double whiskeys. A lover's bitter lament - it ends in the destruction of the object of adoration.
The Regional Office Is under Attack! by
When a prophecy suggests that an insider might bring about the downfall of a powerful underground organization known as the Regional Office, devoted recruit Sarah and young assassin Rose find their respective lives clashing in a dispute that threatens everything they know.
The Story of My Teeth by
"Luiselli follows in the imaginative tradition of writers like Borges and Márquez, but her style and concerns are unmistakably her own. This deeply playful novel is about the passion and obsession of collecting, the nature of storytelling, the value of objects, and the complicated bonds of family. . . Luiselli has become a writer to watch, in part because it's truly hard to know (but exciting to wonder about) where she will go next."--The New York Times I was born in Pachuca, the Beautiful Windy City, with four premature teeth and my body completely covered in a very fine coat of fuzz. But I'm grateful for that inauspicious start because ugliness, as my other uncle, Euripides López Sánchez, was given to saying, is character forming. Highway is a late-in-life world traveler, yarn spinner, collector, and legendary auctioneer. His most precious possessions are the teeth of the "notorious infamous" like Plato, Petrarch, and Virginia Woolf. Written in collaboration with the workers at a Jumex juice factory, Teeth is an elegant, witty, exhilarating romp through the industrial suburbs of Mexico City and Luiselli's own literary influences. Valeria Luiselli was born in Mexico City in 1983 and grew up in South Africa. Her work has been translated into many languages and has appeared in publications including theNew York Times, Granta, and McSweeney's. Her novel,The Story of My Teeth is the Winner of the LA Times Book Prize in Fiction.
Shadow Without a Name by
A stunning debut by one of Mexico's most dazzling younger writers. In 1916, Victor Kretzchmar and Thadeus Dreyer face each other over a chessboard on a train heading to the Austro-Hungarian Empire's disastrous Eastern Front. The stakes are high: the winner will take Kretzchmar's identity as a railway signalman and live out the war in safety. The loser will go to certain death.
Dancing to Almendra by
Havana, 1957. On the same day that the Mafia capo Umberto Anastasia is assassinated in a barber's chair in New York, a hippopotamus escapes from the zoo and is shot and killed by its pursuers. Assigned to cover the zoo story, Joaquin Porrata, a young Cuban journalist, finds himself embroiled in the mysterious connections between the hippo's death and the Mafioso's in this intoxicating story of murder, mobsters, and, finally, love.
My Fathers' Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain by
When a young writer returns home to visit his dying father, he finds himself drawn into an obsessive search for a local man gone missing. As the truth--not only about his father but an entire generation--comes to light, the narrator is forced to confront the ghosts of Argentina's dark political past, as well as long-hidden memories about his own family's history.
La Vida Doble by
Set in the darkest years of the Pinochet dictatorship, La Vida Doble is the story of Lorena, a leftist militant who arrives at a merciless turning point. Captured by agents of the Chilean repression, withstanding brutal torture to save her comrades, she must now either forsake the allegiances of motherhood or betray the political ideals to which she is deeply committed.
The Grill by
Adolfo Pardo's transcription and novelization of a 19-year-old woman's account of her detention and torture under the Pinochet dictatorship
Love War Stories by
Puerto Rican girls are brought up to want one thing: true love. Yet they are raised by women whose lives are marked by broken promises, grief, and betrayal. While some believe that they'll be the ones to finally make it work, others swear not to repeat cycles of violence. This collection documents how these “love wars” break out across generations as individuals find themselves caught in the crosshairs of romance, expectations, and community.
In the Time of the Butterflies by
et during the waning days of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic in 1960, this extraordinary novel tells the story the Mirabal sisters, three young wives and mothers who are assassinated after visiting their jailed husbands.
Zigzagger by
Set mainly in California's Central Valley, Manuel Muñoz's first collection of stories goes beyond the traditional family myths and narratives of Chicano literature and explores, instead, the constant struggle of characters against their physical and personal surroundings. Usually depicted as the lush and green world of rural quiet and tranquility, the Valley becomes the backdrop for the difficulties these characters confront as they try to maintain hope and independence in the face of isolation.
The Road to Tamazunchale by
The road to Tamazunchale, which was nominated for the National Book Award, tells the story of Don Fausto, a very old man on the verge of death who lives in the barrio of Los Angeles. Rather than resigning himself, he embarks on a glorious journey in and out of time, space and consciousness with a cast of companions that include his teenaged niece, a barrio street dude, a Peruvian shepherd, a group of mojados, and others
So Far from God by
Tome is a small, outwardly sleepy hamlet in central New Mexico. In Ana Castillo's hands, though, it stands wondrously revealed as a place of marvels, teeming with life and with all manner of collisions: the past with the present, the real with the supernatural, the comic with the horrific, the Native American with the Hispano with the Anglo, the women with the men.
August by
Traveling home to rural Patagonia, a young woman grapples with herself as she makes the journey to scatter the ashes of her friend Andrea. Twenty-one-year-old Emilia might still be living, but she's jaded by her studies and discontent with her boyfriend, and apathetic toward the idea of moving on. Despite the admiration she receives for having relocated to Buenos Aires, in reality, cosmopolitanism and a career seem like empty scams.
