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Hispanic Heritage Month

Enjoy these selections from Hispanic authors from the adult fiction and non-fiction collections.

Olga dies dreaming : a novel by Xochitl Gonzalez

"A blazing talent debuts with the tale of a status-driven wedding planner grappling with her social ambitions, absent mother, and Puerto Rican roots, all in the wake of Hurricane María. It's 2017, and Olga and her brother, Pedro "Prieto" Acevedo, are bold-faced names in their hometown of New York. Prieto is a popular congressman representing their gentrifying Latinx neighborhood in Brooklyn while Olga is the tony wedding planner for Manhattan's powerbrokers. Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy. Sure, Olga can orchestrate the love stories of the 1%, but she can't seem to find her own...until she meets Matteo, who forces her to confront the effects of long-held family secrets... Twenty-seven years ago, their mother, Blanca, a Young Lord-turned-radical, abandoned her children to advance a militant political cause, leaving them to be raised by their grandmother. Now, with the winds of hurricane season, Blanca has come barreling back into their lives. Set against the backdrop of New York City in the months surrounding the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico's history, Xochitl Gonzalez's Olga Dies Dreaming is a story that examines political corruption, familial strife and the very notion of the American dream-all while asking what it really means to weather a storm"--

Violeta : a novel by Isabel Allende

Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family with five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth. Through her father's prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses everything and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling. She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting times of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life is shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women's rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and ultimately not one, but two pandemics. Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humor carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional

A ballad of love and glory : a novel by Reyna Grande

"A Long Petal of the Sea meets Luis Alberto Urrea's The House of Broken Angels in this epic historical romance about a Mexican woman and an Irish-American soldier who fall in love in the thick of the Mexican-American War"--

A woman of endurance : a novel by Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa

"A groundbreaking historical novel from a heralded author that explores the seldom discussed Puerto Rican Atlantic Slave Trade. At a time when importing humans from Africa had been prohibited by the Spanish Crown, Pola and other slave women provide theirmaster with babies who are immediately taken away and sold on the auction block. Her serial rapes by a number of men are routine and often provided entertainment for the master and his friends. Understandably she grows into an angry, distrustful and combative woman who lives life in survival mode at all times. After repeated attempts at escape and having been beaten almost to death, she is sent to a new plantation owner as payment of a gambling debt. Pola's life in the second plantation is much more bearable than her past experience. In this new hacienda, she is taken in by a supportive group of other enslaved black women. Within the confines of this enslaved community, she encounters a wide variety of people and situations that are new to her. Cautious and still hostile, she begins to find her way this new environment and the people in it, leading to conflicting feelings and much soul-searching. Among the people she meets is Chachita, a young woman who becomes a surrogate daughter to her, and Simaon, a man who, amazingly, takes nothing from her and offers her a hand in friendship. Her physical and emotional wounds begin to heal as she finds more freedom of movement and emotional support than she has known since captivity. Ultimately, she begins to reconcile her brutal past with a more nurturing present in which she allows herself to trust and love again"--

The hacienda by Isabel Cañas

"Mexican Gothic meets Rebecca in this debut supernatural suspense novel, set in the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence, about a remote house, dark secrets, and the woman pulled into their clutches... In the overthrow of the Mexican government, Beatriz's father is executed and her home destroyed. When handsome Don Rodolfo Solaorzano proposes, Beatriz ignores the rumors surrounding his first wife's sudden demise, choosing instead to seize the security his estate in the countryside provides. She will have her own home again, no matter the cost. But Hacienda San Isidro is not the sanctuary she imagined. When Rodolfo returns to work in the capital, visions and voices invade Beatriz's sleep. The weight of invisible eyes follows her every move. Rodolfo's sister, Juana, scoffs at Beatriz's fears-but why does she refuse to enter the house at night? Why does the cook burn copal incense at the edge of the kitchen and mark its doorway with strange symbols? What really happened to the first Doña Solaorzano?Beatriz only knows two things for certain. Something is wrong with the hacienda. And no one there will help her. Desperate for help, she clings to the young priest, Padre Andraes, as an ally. No ordinary priest, it will take Andraes's skills as a witch to battle the malevolent presence haunting the hacienda. Far from a refuge, San Isidro may be Beatriz's doom"--

Neruda on the park : a novel by Cleyvis Natera

"An exhilarating debut novel about members of a Dominican family in New York City who take radically different paths when faced with encroaching gentrification, for readers of Such a Fun Age and Dominicana. The Guerreros have lived in Nothar Park, a predominantly Dominican part of the city, for over twenty years. When the crash of a wrecking ball signals the demolition of an old neighboring tenement, Eusebia, an elder of the community, quietly devises an increasingly dangerous series of schemes to stop construction of the luxury condos that will take their place. Meanwhile Eusebia's daughter, Luz, a rising associate at a top Manhattan law firm, strives to live the bougie lifestyle her parents worked hard to give her. While her father, Vladimir, secretly designs their retirement home in the Dominican Republic and Eusebia begins masterminding a neighborhood crime ring to save their homes, Luz is wholly distracted with a sweltering romance with the white, handsome developer of the company her mother so vehemently opposes. And when mother and daughter collide, at odds on what it means to save their community, tensions ramp up in Nothar Park, and build toward a near fatal climax. A fierce meditation on race, class, and community, with the propulsive force and poignant take on trenchant modern issues, Neruda on the Park weaves a rich and vivid tapestry of family, community, and Afro-Latinx culture, announcing Cleyvis Natera as an electrifying debut novelist"--

In the shadow of the mountain : a memoir of courage by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado

"When Silvia's mother called her home to Peru, she knew something finally had to give. A Latina hero in the elite macho tech world of Silicon Valley, privately, she was hanging by a thread. She was deep in the throes of alcoholism, hiding her sexuality from her family, and repressing the abuse she'd suffered as a child. Her visit to Peru would become a turning point in her life. Silvia started climbing. Something about the brute force required for the ascent-the restricted oxygen at altitude, the vast expanse of emptiness around her, the risk and spirit and sheer size of the mountains, the nearness of death-woke her up. And then, she took her biggest pain to the biggest mountain: Everest. "The Mother of the World," as it's known in Nepal, allows few to reach her summit, but Silvia didn't go alone. She gathered a group of young female survivors and led them to base camp alongside her, their strength and community propelling her forward. In the Shadow of the Mountain is a remarkable story of heroism, one which awakens in all of us a lust for adventure, gratitude for the strong women in our lives, and faith in our own resilience"--

Trust by Hernán Díaz

"In glamorous 1920s New York City, two charactersof sophisticated taste come together. One is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; the other, the brilliant daughter of penniless aristocrats. Steeped in affluence and grandeur, their marriage excites gossip and allows a continued ascent -- all at a moment when the country is undergoing a great transformation. This is the story at the center of Harold Vanner's novel Bonds, which everyone in 1938 New York seems to have read. But it isn't the only version. Provocative, propulsive, and repeatedly surprising, Hernan Diaz's Trust puts the story of these characters into conversation with the "the truth"-and in tension with the life and perspective of an outsider immersed in the mystery of a competing account. The result is an overarching novel that becomes more exhilarating and profound with each new layer and revelation, engaging the reader in a treasure hunt for the truth that confronts the reality-warping gravitational pull of money, and how power often manipulates facts"--

Woman of light : a novel by Kali Fajardo-Anstine

"1890: When Desiderya Lopez, The Sleepy Prophet, finds an abandoned infant on the banks of an arroyo, she recognizes something in his spirit and brings him home. Pidre will go on to become a famous showman in the Anglo West whose main act, Simodecea, is Pidre's fearless, sharpshooting wife, who wrangles bears as part of his show. 1935: Luz "Little Light" Lopez and her brother Diego work the carnival circuit in downtown Denver. Luz, is a tea leaf reader, and Diego is a snake charmer. One day, a pale-faced woman in white fur asks Luz for a reading, calling her by a name that only her brother knows. Later that night at a party downtown, Luz sees Diego dancing with this pale-faced woman, which results in a brawl with the local white supremacist group. Diego leaves town for cover and Luz is left trying to get justice for her brother and family. Merging two multi-generational storylines in Colorado, this is a novel of family love, secrets, and survival. With Fajardo-Anstine's immense capacity to render characters and paint vivid life, set against the Sange de Cristo mountians, Woman of Light is full of the weight, richness, and complexities of mixed blood and mica clay. It delights like an Old Western, and inspires the hope embedded in histories yet-told"--

The man who could move clouds : a memoir by Ingrid Rojas Contreras

"For Ingrid Rojas Contreras, magic runs in the family. Growing up in the Colombia of the 1980's and 1990's in a house where "what did you dream?" was asked in place of "how are you?" her world was laced with prophecy and violence. Her maternal grandfather, Nono, was a renowned curandero, a community healer gifted with the ability to talk to the dead, tell the future, treat the sick, and move the clouds. As a young girl, Rojas Contreras eavesdropped on her mother's fortune-telling business from the stairsand waited eagerly for the moments when Mami appeared in two places at once. She was accustomed to "letting the ghosts in." So when Ingrid, now living in the U.S., suffered a head injury in her 20's that left her with amnesia-an accident eerily similar toa fall that had put her mother in a coma at the age of 8, from which she woke with not just amnesia, but the ability to see ghosts--the family assumes "the secrets" have finally been passed down to the next generation. But as Ingrid recovers her memories, they don't come with supernatural abilities. Rather, she is consumed by a powerful urge to learn even more about her heritage than she knew before the accident. Spurred by a shared dream among Mami and her sisters, wherein Nono communicates that he is unable to rest peacefully in the afterlife, Ingrid joins her mother on a journey home to Colombia to disinter her grandfather's remains. With her mother as her unpredictable, stubborn and often hilarious guide, Ingrid traces her lineage back to her indigenous and Spanish roots, uncovering the violent and rigid colonial narrative that would eventually break her 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 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"--

Paradais by Fernanda Melchor

"Inside a luxury housing complex, two misfit teenagers sneak around and get drunk. Franco Andrade, lonely, overweight, and addicted to porn, obsessively fantasizes about seducing his neighbor-an attractive married woman and mother-while Polo dreams aboutquitting his grueling job as a gardener within the gated community and fleeing his overbearing mother and their narco-controlled village. Each facing the impossibility of getting what he thinks he deserves, Franco and Polo hatch a mindless and macabre scheme. Written in a chilling torrent of prose by one of our most thrilling new writers, Paradais explores the explosive fragility of Mexican society-with its racist, classist, hyperviolent tendencies-and how the myths, desires, and hardships of teenagers can tear life apart at the seams"--

The daughter of Doctor Moreau : a novel by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

"Carlota Moreau: A young woman growing up on a distant and luxuriant estate, safe from the conflict and strife of the Yucatán peninsula. The only daughter of a researcher who is either a genius or a madman. Montgomery Laughton: A melancholic overseer with a tragic past and a propensity for alcohol. An outcast who assists Dr. Moreau with his experiments, which are financed by the Lizaldes, owners of magnificent haciendas and plentiful coffers. The hybrids: The fruits of the doctor's labor, destined to blindly obey their creator and remain in the shadows. A motley group of part human, part animal monstrosities. All of them live in a perfectly balanced and static world, which is jolted by the abrupt arrival of Eduardo Lizalde, the charming and careless son of Dr. Moreau's patron, who will unwittingly begin a dangerous chain reaction. For Moreau keeps secrets, Carlota has questions, and, in the sweltering heat of the jungle, passions may ignite." --back cover (large print version)

Crying in the bathroom : a memoir by Erika L Sánchez

"From the New York Times bestselling author of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, an utterly original memoir-in-essays that is as deeply moving as it is hilariously funny"--

Nepantla familias : an anthology of Mexican American literature on families in between worlds

"Nepantla Familias brings together Mexican American narratives that explore and negotiate the many permutations of living in between different worlds: how the authors or their characters create or fail to create, a cohesive identity amid the contradictions in their lives. Nepantla or living in the inbetween space of the borderland is the focus of this anthology. The essays, poems, and short stories explore the in-between moments in Mexican American life: the family dynamics of living between traditional and contemporary worlds, between Spanish and English, between cultures with traditional and shifting identities. In times of change, family values are either adapted or discarded in the quest for self-discovery, part of the process of selecting and composing elements of a changing identity. Nepantla is the quintessential American experience that revives important foundational values through immigrants and the children of immigrants. Here readers will find a glimpse of contemporary Mexican American experience; here, also, readers will experience complexities of the geographic, linguistic, and cultural borders common to us all"--

Once I was you : a memoir of love and hate in a torn America by Maria Hinojosa

"Emmy Award-winning NPR journalist Maria Hinojosa shares her personal story interwoven with American immigration policy's coming-of-age journey at a time when our country's branding went from "The Land of the Free" to "the land of invasion.""--

Finding Latinx : in search of the voices redefining Latino identity by Paola Ramos

The host of VICE's "Latin-X" examines the growing influence and power of the estimated 32.5 million Latinos in the U.S. under the age of 40 and how they are redefining Latino identity.

Let's talk about your wall : Mexican writers respond to the immigration crisis

"An anthology of writing by Mexican journalists, historians, novelists, and artists on the immigration crisis in the United States"--

The sorrows of Mexico : an indictment of their country's failings by seven exceptional writers

"With contributions from seven of Mexico's finest journalists, this is reportage at its bravest and most necessary - it has the power to change the world's view of their country, and by the force of its truth, to start to heal the country's many sorrows. Supported the Arts Council Grant's for the Arts Programme and by PEN Promotes. Veering between carnival and apocalypse, Mexico has in the last ten years become the epicentre of the international drug trade. The so-called "war on drugs" has been a brutal and chaotic failure (more than 160,000 lives have been lost). The drug cartels and the forces of law and order are often in collusion, corruption is everywhere. Life is cheap and inconvenient people - the poor, the unlucky, the honest or the inquisitive - can be "disappeared" leaving not a trace behind (in September 2015, more than 26,798 were officially registered as "not located"). Yet people in all walks of life have refused to give up. Diego Enrique Osorno and Juan Villoro tell stories of teenage prostitution and Mexico's street children. Anabel Hernández and Emiliano Ruiz Parra give chilling accounts of the "disappearance" of forty-three students and the murder of a self-educated land lawyer. Sergio González Rodríguez and Marcela Turati dissect the impact of the violence on the victims and those left behind, while Lydia Cacho contributes a journal of what it is like to live every day of your life under threat of death. Reading these accounts we begin to understand the true nature of the meltdown of democracy, obscured by lurid headlines, and the sheer physical and intellectual courage needed to oppose it."--Amazon.com

Woman hollering creek and other stories by Sandra Cisneros

The lovingly drawn characters of these stories give voice to the vibrant and varied life on both sides of the Mexican border with tales of pure discovery, filled with moments of infinite and intimate wisdom.

Citizen illegal by José Olivares

In this stunning debut, poet José Olivarez explores the stories, contradictions, joys, and sorrows that embody life in the spaces between Mexico and America. He paints vivid portraits of good kids, bad kids, families clinging to hope, life after the steel mills, gentrifying barrios, and everything in between. Drawing on the rich traditions of Latinx and Chicago writers like Sandra Cisneros and Gwendolyn Brooks, Olivarez creates a home out of life in the in-between. Combining wry humor with potent emotional force, Olivarez takes on complex issues of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and immigration using an everyday language that invites the reader in. Olivarez has a unique voice that makes him a poet to watch.

The death and life of Aida Hernandez : a border story by Aaron Bobrow-Strain

Taking us into detention centers, immigration courts, and the inner lives of Aida and other daring characters, The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez reveals the human consequences of militarizing what was once a more forgiving border. With emotional force and narrative suspense, Aaron Bobrow-Strain brings us into the heart of a violently unequal America. He also shows us that the heroes of our current immigration wars are less likely to be perfect paragons of virtue than complex, flawed human beings who deserve justice and empathy all the same.

Horizontal vertigo : a city called Mexico by Juan Villoro

"Horizontal Vertigo: the title refers to the fear of ever-impending earthquakes, which led Mexicans to build their capital city outward rather than upward. With the perspicacity of a keenly observant flâneur, Villoro wanders through the city seemingly without a plan, describing people, places, and things, while brilliantly drawing connections among them, the better to reveal, in all its multitudinous glory, the vicissitudes and triumphs of Mexico City's cultural, political, and social history: from indigenous antiquity to the Aztec period, from the Spanish conquest to Mexico City today, one of the world's leading cultural and financial centers. In his deeply iconoclastic book, Villoro organizes his text around a recurring series of chapter titles: "Living in the City," "City Characters," "Shocks, Crossings, and Ceremonies." What he achieves, miraculously, is a stunning, intriguingly coherent meditation on Mexico City's genius loci, its spirit of place"--

The five wounds : a novel by Kirstin Valdez Quade

"From an award-winning storyteller comes a stunning debut novel following a New Mexican family's extraordinary year of love and sacrifice. It's Holy Week in the small town of Las Penas, New Mexico, and thirty-three-year-old unemployed Amadeo Padilla has been given the part of Jesus in the Good Friday procession. He is preparing feverishly for this role when his fifteen-year-old daughter Angel shows up pregnant on his doorstep and disrupts his plans. Their reunion sets her own life down a startling path. Vivid, tender, darkly funny, and beautifully rendered, The Five Wounds spans the baby's first year as five generations of the Padilla family converge: Amadeo's mother, Yolanda, reeling from a recent discovery; Angel's mother, whom Angel isn't speaking to;and disapproving Tio Tive, keeper of the family's history. In the absorbing, realist tradition of Elizabeth Strout and Jonathan Franzen, Kirstin Valdez Quade conjures characters that will linger long after the final page, bringing to life their strugglesto parent children they may not be equipped to save"--

Nuestra América : my family in the vertigo of translation by Claudio Lomnitz-Adler

"A riveting exploration of the intersecting lines of Jewish and indigenous Latin American thought and culture, by way of a family memoir. In Our America, eminent anthropologist and historian Claudio Lomnitz traces his grandparents' exile from Eastern Europe to South America. At the same time, the book is a pretext to explain and analyze the worldview, culture, and spirit of countries such as Peru, Colombia, and Chile, from the perspective of educated Jewish emigrants imbued with the hope and determination typical of those who escaped Europe in 1920s. Lomnitz's grandparents, who were both trained to defy ghetto life with the pioneering spirit of the early Zionist movement, became intensely involved in the Peruvian leftist intellectual milieu and its practice of connecting Peru's indigenous past to an emancipatory internationalism that included Jewish culture and thought. After being thrown into prison supposedly for their socialist leanings, Lomnitz's grandparents were exiled to Colombia, where they were subject to its scandals, its class system, its political life. Through this lens, Lomnitz explores the almost negligible attention and esteem that South America holds in US public opinion. The story then continues to Chile during World War II, Israel in the 1950s, and finally to Claudio's youth, living with his parents in Berkeley, California, and Mexico City. Writing in a vivid, engaging style, Lomnitz creates an intellectual space that transcends the family memoir genre, where the exploration of one past, origin, and culture is placed in a dialectical relationship with the background of a renowned anthropologist specializing in Latin American history and culture"--

My Mexico City kitchen : recipes and convictions by Gabriela Cámara

"Inspired by the flavors, ingredients, and flair of culinary and cultural hotspot Mexico City, Gabriela Cámara's style of fresh-first, vegetable-forward, legume-loving, and seafood-centric Mexican cooking is a siren call to home cooks who crave authentic, on-trend recipes they can make with confidence and regularity. With 150 recipes for Basicos (basics), Desayunos (breakfasts), Primeros (starters), Platos Fuertos (mains), and Postres (sweets), Mexican food-lovers will find all the dishes they want to cook--from Chilaquiles Verdes to Chiles Rellenos and Flan de Cajeta--and will discover many sure-to-be favorites, such as her signature tuna tostadas"--

Mexico from the source : authentic recipes from the people that know them the best by Kate Armstrong

The food of Oaxaca : recipes and stories from Mexico's culinary capital by Alejandro (Chef) author Ruiz

"In The Food of Oaxaca, chef Alejandro Ruiz introduces home cooks to the vibrant foods of his home state--"the culinary capital of Mexico" (CNN)--with more than 50 recipes both ancestral and original. Divided into three parts, the book covers the traditional dishes of the region, where Ruiz grew up; the cuisine of the Oaxacan coast, where he spent many years; and the food he serves today at his acclaimed restaurant, Casa Oaxaca. Here are rustic recipes for making your own tortillas, and preparing memelas, tamales, and moles, as well as Ruiz's own creations, like Duck Tacos with Coloradito, Jicama Tacos, and Oaxacan Chocolate Mousse. Interspersed are thoughtful essays on dishes, ingredients, kitchen tools, and local traditions that transport the reader to Oaxaca, along with an extensive glossary to help American readers understand the culinary culture of Mexico. Also included are recommendations for the best places to eat in Oaxaca, making this an indispensable volume for home cooks and travelers alike"--

Tu casa mi casa : Mexican recipes for the home cook by Enrique Olvera

Enrique Olvera is a leading talent on the gastronomic stage, reinventing the cuisine of his native Mexico to global acclaim - yet his true passion is Mexican home cooking. Tu Casa Mi Casa is Mexico City/New York-based Olvera's ode to the kitchens of his homeland. He shares 100 of the recipes close to his heart - the core collection of basic Mexican dishes - and encourages readers everywhere to incorporate traditional and contemporary Mexican tastes and ingredients into their recipe repertoire, no matter how far they live from Mexico

Where we come from : a novel / Oscar Cásares. by Oscar Casares

"From the acclaimed author Brownsville and Amigoland--a stunning and timely new novel about a Mexican-American family in a Texas border town who reluctantly become involved in smuggling immigrants into the United States. Brownsville, Texas, has a dangerous reputation: it sits on the U.S. side of the bridge into Matamoros, Mexico, a city controlled by notorious cartels. But that isn't why 12-year-old Orly doesn't want to visit. Though he's still grieving the death of his mother, his father, Victor, is making him spend the summer in Brownsville with his godmother, Nina. Now a successful ad executive in Houston, Victor was raised in Brownsville and thinks it will do Orly good to know about his less-privileged roots. But Nina, distracted by having to care forher elderly mother, seems only to have rules for Orly. In particular: Don't go near the back house. . . Nina has spent her own life following rules and sacrificing her own desires for others' needs. But when a single act of kindness toward her desperateMexican cleaning lady begins to spiral out of control, Nina risks exposure from all sides--not only from her curious godson and her controlling brother, but from ruthless human traffickers and the police. Now, Nina will have to face the secrets she's longkept if she has any hope of helping the people suddenly under her care. Tackling the crisis of U.S. immigration policy from an unusual, deeply humane angle, Where We Come From explores the ways that family history shapes us, how secrets can burden us, and how finding compassion and understanding for others can ultimately set us free"--

When Montezuma met Cortés : the true story of the meeting that changed history by Matthew Restall

"On November 8, 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés first met Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, at the entrance to the capital city of Tenochtitlan. This introduction— the prelude to the Spanish seizure of Mexico City and to European colonization of the mainland of the Americas— has long been the symbol of Cortés's bold and brilliant military genius. Montezuma, on the other hand, is remembered as a coward who gave away a vast empire and touched off a wave of colonial invasions across the hemisphere. But is this really what happened? In a departure from traditional tellings, When Montezuma Met Cortés uses "the Meeting"— as Restall dubs their first encounter— as the entry point into a comprehensive reevaluation of both Cortés and Montezuma. Drawing on rare primary sources and overlooked accounts by conquistadors and Aztecs alike, Restall explores Cortés's and Montezuma's posthumous reputations, their achievements and failures, and the worlds in which they lived— leading, step by step, to a dramatic inversion of the old story. As Restall takes us through this sweeping, revisionist account of a pivotal moment in modern civilization, he calls into question our view of the history of the Americas, and, indeed, of history itself." --

Black dove : essays on mama, mi'jo, and me by Ana Castillo

"In this collection of essays, Ana Castillo examines what it means to be a single, brown, feminist parent in a world of mass incarceration, racial profiling, and police brutality. Castillo writes about intergenerational stories from Mexico City to Chicago, and she narrates some of America's social injustices through the lens of motherhood"--

Dominicana : a novel by Angie Cruz

Fifteen-year-old Ana Cancion never dreamed of moving to America, the way the girls she grew up with in the Dominican countryside did. But when Juan Ruiz proposes and promises to take her to New York City, she has to say yes. It doesn’t matter that he is twice her age, that there is no love between them. Their marriage is an opportunity for her entire close-knit family to eventually immigrate. So on New Year’s Day, 1965, Ana leaves behind everything she knows and becomes Ana Ruiz, a wife confined to a cold six-floor walk-up in Washington Heights. Lonely and miserable, Ana hatches a reckless plan to escape. But at the bus terminal, she is stopped by Cesar, Juan’s free-spirited younger brother, who convinces her to stay.

Her body and other parties : stories by Carmen Maria Machado

Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. She bends genres to shape startling stories that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies." -- From the publisher

The affairs of the Falcóns : a novel by Melissa Rivero

Ana Falcón, along with her husband Lucho and their two young children, has fled the economic and political strife of Peru for a chance at a new life in New York City in the 1990s. Being undocumented, however, has significantly curtailed the family’s opportunities: Ana is indebted to a loan shark who calls herself Mama, and is stretched thin by unceasing shifts at her factory job. To make matters worse, Ana must also battle both criticism from Lucho’s cousin—who has made it obvious the family is not welcome to stay in her spare room for much longer—and escalating and unwanted attention from Mama’s husband. As the pressure builds, Ana becomes increasingly desperate. While Lucho dreams of returning to Peru, Ana is deeply haunted by the demons she left behind and determined to persevere in this new country. But how many sacrifices is she willing to make before admitting defeat and returning to Peru? And what lines is she willing to cross in order to protect her family?

Lost children archive : a novel by Valeria Luiselli

"From the two-time NBCC Finalist, a fiercely imaginative novel about a family's summer road trip across America--a journey that, with breathtaking imagery, spare lyricism, and profound humanity, probes the nature of justice and equality in America today.A mother and father set out with their kids from New York to Arizona. In their used Volvo--and with their ten-year-old son trying out his new Polaroid camera--the family is heading for the Apacheria: the region the Apaches once called home, and where theghosts of Geronimo and Cochise might still linger. The father, a sound documentarist, hopes to gather an "inventory of echoes" from this historic, mythic place. The mother, a radio journalist, becomes consumed by the news she hears on the car radio, about the thousands of children trying to reach America but getting stranded at the southern border, held in detention centers, or being sent back to their homelands, to an unknown fate. But as the family drives farther west--through Virginia to Tennessee, across Oklahoma and Texas--we sense they are on the brink of a crisis of their own. A fissure is growing between the parents, one the children can feel beneath their feet. They are led, inexorably, to a grand, unforgettable adventure--both in the harsh desert landscape and within the chambers of their own imaginations. Told through the voices of the mother and her son, as well as through a stunning tapestry of collected texts and images--including prior stories of migration and displacement--Lost ChildrenArchive is a story of how we document our experiences, and how we remember the things that matter to us the most. Blending the personal and the political with astonishing empathy, it is a powerful, wholly original work of fiction: exquisite, provocative,and deeply moving"--

The story of my teeth by Valeria Luiselli

"Bon vivant, world traveler, auctioneer-the story of Highway and his teeth is like Johnny Cash meets Robert Walser in Mexico"--

Tears of the trufflepig by Fernando A Flores

"A surreal debut novel set on the Texas-Mexico border, blending magical realism, sci-fi, and political parable to tell the story of an everyday man's tumble into a bizarre and sinister criminal underworld"--

The shape of water by Guillermo del Toro

In an otherworldly story set against the backdrop of Cold War-era America, an amphibious man is discovered in the Amazon--and subsequently finds love within the human race

Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis

"From the highly acclaimed, award-winning author of The Gods of Tango, a revolutionary new novel about five wildly different women who, in the midst of the Uruguayan dictatorship, find each other as lovers, friends, and ultimately, family. In 1977 Uruguay, a military government has crushed political dissent with ruthless force. In an environment where citizens are kidnapped, raped, and tortured, homosexuality is a dangerous transgression. And yet, despite such societal realities, Romina, Flaca, Anita "La Venus," Paz, and Malena--five cantoras, women who "sing"--somehow, miraculously, find each other and discover an isolated cape, Cabo Polonio, inhabited by just a lonely lighthouse keeper and a few rugged seal hunters. They claim this place as their secret sanctuary. Over the next 35 years, their lives move back and forth between Cabo Polonio and Montevideo, the city they call home, as they return, sometimes together, sometimes in pairs, with lovers in tow, or alone. Throughout it all, the women will be tested repeatedly--by their families, lovers, society, and each other--as they fight to live authentic lives. A genre-defining novel and De Robertis's masterpiece, Cantoras is a breathtaking portrait of queer love, community, forgotten history, and the strength of the human spirit. De Robertis has written a novel that is at once timeless and groundbreaking--a tale about the fire in all our souls and those who make it burn"--

The boy kings of Texas : a memoir by Domingo Martinez

"Domingo Martinez lays bare his interior and exterior worlds as he struggles to make sense of the violent and the ugly, along with the beautiful and the loving. Partly a reflection on the culture of machismo and partly an exploration of the author's boyhood spent in his sister's hand-me-down clothes, this book delves into the enduring and complex bond between Martinez and his deeply flawed, but fiercely protective older brother. It features a cast of memorable characters, including his gun-hoarding, former farmhand Gramma and "The Mimi's," two of his older sisters who for a short, glorious time, manage to transform themselves from poor Latina adolescents into upper-class white girls. Martinez delves into the complicated relationships between extended family and the inner conflicts that result when the desire to Americanize clashes with the inherent need to defend one's manhood in an aggressive, archaic patriarchal farming culture. He provides a real glimpse into a society where children are traded like commerce, physical altercations routinely solve problems, drugs are rampant, sex is often crude, and people depend on the family witch doctor for advice. Charming, painful, and enlightening, it examines the traumas and pleasures of growing up in South Texas, and the often terrible consequences when two very different cultures collide on the banks of a dying river"--

The book of lost saints by Daniel José Older

"The spirit of Marisol, who vanished during the Cuban Revolution, visits her nephew, Ramon, in modern-day New Jersey, and her presence prompts him to investigate the story of his ancestor, unaware of the forces driving him on his search"--

Don't send flowers by Martín Solares

From a writer whose work has been praised by Junot Díaz as "Latin American fiction at its pulpy phantasmagorical finest," Don't Send Flowers is a riveting novel centered on Carlos Treviño, a retired police detective in northern Mexico who has to go up against the corruption and widespread violence that caused him to leave the force, when he's hired by a wealthy businessman to find his missing daughter.

Don't shed your tears for anyone who lives on these streets by Patricio Pron

"From the acclaimed Argentine writer, one of Granta's Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists: a bold, ambitious new novel about how art became politics and politics became crime during the cataclysm of the Second World War. Pinerolo, Italy; April 1945. Ata conference in support of Fascism, a writer disappears and is found dead at the bottom of a cliff. Thirty years later, a young man--a political activist or a terrorist, depending on your perspective--interviews survivors from the conference, to try to uncover the truth about what happened and its consequences. Who was the writer? What did he believe in? Why, shortly before his death, did he save a man who could have killed him? Where is his lost work? And what does any of this have to do with a teenagerin contemporary Milan involved in a violent confrontation with the police? Don't Shed Your Tears for Anyone Who Lives on These Streets is a razor-sharp, completely original exploration of our most timeless concerns--guilt, betrayal, the legacy of earliergenerations--and probes the question of what literature is: how it explains our times and irrevocably changes our lives"--

The devil's highway : a true story by Luis Alberto Urrea

Describes the attempt of twenty-six men to cross the Mexican border into the desert of southern Arizona, a region known as the Devil's Highway, detailing their harrowing ordeal and battle for survival against impossible odds

The shape of the ruins : a novel by Juan Gabriel Vásquez

When a man is arrested at a museum for attempting to steal the bullet-ridden suit of a Columbian politician murdered decades ago, few notice. But soon this thwarted theft takes on greater meaning as it becomes a thread in a widening web of popular fixations with contemporary conspiracies, historical secrets, and famous assassinations, haunting those who feel that only they know the real truth behind these killings and the mysteries surrounding them

The house of broken angels : a novel by Luis Alberto Urrea

"In Urrea's exuberant new novel of Mexican-American life, 70-year-old patriarch Big Angel de la Cruz is dying, and he wants to have one last birthday blowout. Unfortunately, his 100-year-old mother, America, dies the week of his party, so funeral and birthday are celebrated one day apart. The entire contentious, riotous de la Cruz clan descends on San Diego for the events--"High rollers and college students, prison veternaos and welfare mothers, happy kids and sad old-timers and pinches gringos and all available relatives." Not to mention figurative ghosts of the departed and an unexpected guest with a gun. Taking place over the course of two days, with time out for an extended flashback to Big Angel's journey from La Paz to San Diego in the 1960s, the narrative follows Big Angel and his extended familia as they air old grievances, initiate new romances, and try to put their relationships in perspective. Of the large cast, standouts include Perla, Big Angel's wife, the object of his undimmed affection; Little Angel, his half-Anglo half-brother, who strains to remain aloof; and Lalo, his son, trailing a lifetime of bad decisions." -- Publisher's weekly

The distance between us : a memoir by Reyna Grande

When Reyna Grande's father leaves his wife and three children behind in a village in Mexico to make the dangerous trek across the border to the United States, he promises he will soon return from "El Otro Lado" (The Other Side) with enough money to build them a dream house where they can all live together. His promises become harder to believe as months turn into years. When he summons his wife to join him, Reyna and her siblings are deposited in the already overburdened household of their stern, unsmiling grandmother. The three siblings are forced to look out for themselves; in childish games they find a way to forget the pain of abandonment and learn to solve very adult problems. When their mother at last returns, the reunion sets the stage for a dramatic new chapter in Reyna's young life: her own journey to "El Otro Lado" to live with the man who has haunted her imagination for years, her long-absent father. -- Jacket, p. [2]

Afterlife : a novel by Julia Alvarez

Antonia Vega, the immigrant writer at the center of Afterlife, has had the rug pulled out from under her. She has just retired from the college where she taught English when her beloved husband, Sam, suddenly dies. And then more jolts: her bighearted but unstable sister disappears, and Antonia returns home one evening to find a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep. Antonia has always sought direction in the literature she loves—lines from her favorite authors play in her head like a soundtrack—but now she finds that the world demands more of her than words. Afterlife is a compact, nimble, and sharply droll novel. Set in this political moment of tribalism and distrust, it asks: What do we owe those in crisis in our families, including—maybe especially—members of our human family? How do we live in a broken world without losing faith in one another or ourselves? And how do we stay true to those glorious souls we have lost?

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

"The acclaimed author of Gods of Jade and Shadow returns with a darkly enchanting reimagining of Gothic fantasy, in which a spirited young woman discovers the haunting secrets of a beautiful old mansion in 1950s Mexico"--

This is how you lose her by Junot Díaz

Presents a collection of stories that explores the heartbreak and radiance of love as it is shaped by passion, betrayal, and the echoes of intimacy

The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

Living with an old-world mother and rebellious sister, an urban New Jersey misfit dreams of becoming the next J. R. R. Tolkien and believes that a long-standing family curse is thwarting his efforts to find love and happiness

A long petal of the sea : a novel by Isabel Allende

"In the late 1930s, civil war gripped Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life irreversibly intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage neither of them wants, and together are sponsored by poetPablo Neruda to embark on the SS Winnipeg along with 2,200 other refugees in search of a new life. As unlikely partners, they embrace exile and emigrate to Chile as the rest of Europe erupts in World War. Starting over on a new continent, their trials are just beginning. Over the course of their lives, they will face test after test. But they will also find joy as they wait patiently for a day when they are exiles no more, and will find friends in the most unlikely of places. Through it all, it is that hope of being reunited with their home that keeps them going. And in the end, they will find that home might have been closer than they thought all along"--

In the midst of winter : a novel by Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende returns with a sweeping novel about three very different people who are brought together in a mesmerizing story that journeys from present-day Brooklyn to Guatemala in the recent past to 1970s Chile and Brazil.

Más allá del invierno by Isabel Allende

In the middle of a snowstorm in Brooklyn, 60-year-old human rights scholar Richard Bowmaster hits the car of Evelyn Ortega, a young, undocumented immigrant from Guatemala. What at first seems just a small inconvenience takes a far more serious turn when Evelyn turns up at the professor's house seeking help. At a loss, the professor asks his tenant Lucia Maraz, a 62-year-old lecturer from Chile, for her advice. These three very different people are brought together in a story that moves from present-day Brooklyn to Guatemala in the recent past to 1970s Chile and Brazil, sparking the beginning of a long overdue love story between Richard and Lucia

The Japanese lover : a novel by Isabel Allende

In 1939, as Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis and the world goes to war, young Alma Belasco's parents send her away to live in safety with an aunt and uncle in their opulent mansion in San Francisco. There she meets Ichimei Fukuda, the son of the family's Japanese gardener, and between them a tender love blossoms. Following Pearl Harbor, the two are cruelly pulled apart when Ichimei and his family are declared enemies by the US government and relocated to internment camps. Throughout their lifetimes, Alma and Ichimei reunite again and again, but theirs is a love they are forever forced to hide from the world

Ripper : a novel by Isabel Allende

"A fast-paced mystery involving a brilliant teenage sleuth who must unmask a serial killer in San Francisco through Ripper, the online mystery game she plays with her beloved grandfather and friends around the world"--

Maya's notebook : a novel by Isabel Allende

After the death of her beloved grandfather, nineteen-year-old Maya Vidal, turning to drugs, alcohol, and petty crimes, becomes trapped in a war between assassins, the police, the FBI, and Interpol, until her grandmother helps her escape to a remote island off the coast of Chile where she tries to make sense of her life

Island beneath the sea : a novel by Isabel Allende

"The story of a mulatta woman, a slave and concubine, determined to take control of her own destiny in a society where that would seem impossible"--Provided by publisher

Island beneath the sea by Isabel Allende

"The story of a mulatta woman, a slave and concubine, determined to take control of her own destiny in a society where that would seem impossible"--Provided by publisher

Berta Isla by Javier Marías

"Berta Isla thought she knew what to expect from life. When she was a young girl she decided she had found her match in Tomás Nevinson--the dashing half-Spanish, half-English boy in her class with an extraordinary gift for languages--so she was even able to endure their time apart while Tomás studied at Oxford. But after his graduation, he returns to Madrid a changed man. Distracted, sullen, and anxious, Berta's new husband has become a stranger to her, and she begins to suspect that his mysterious job at the Foreign Office is responsible. But it's more than just that: Tomás has unwittingly set in motion events that will derail forever the life they had planned. With unerring insight into the most shadowed corners of the human soul, Marías plunges the reader into the growing chasm between Berta and Tomás and the decisions that irreversibly change the course of the couple's fate. Berta Isla is a novel of love and truth, fear and secrecy, and the destinies we bring upon ourselves"--

Between eternities : and other writings by Javier Marías

"A new, exhilarating collection of critical and personal writings--spanning more than twenty years of work--from the internationally renowned author of The Infatuations and A Heart So White. A Vintage Books Original. Javier Marías is a tireless examinerof the world around us: essayist, novelist, translator, voracious reader, enthusiastic debunker of pretension, and vigorous polymath. He is able to discover what many of us fail to notice or have never put into words, and he keeps looking long after mostof us have turned away. This new collection of essays--by turns literary, philosophical, and autobiographical--journeys from the crumbling canals of Venice to the wide horizons of the Wild West, and Marías captures each new vista with razor-sharp acuityand wit. He explores, with characteristic relish, subjects ranging from soccer to classic cinema, from comic books and toy soldiers to mortality and memory, from "The Most Conceited of Cities" to "Why Almost No One Can Be Trusted," making each brilliantly and inimitably his own. Trenchant and wry, subversive and penetrating, Between Eternities is a collection of dazzling intellectual curiosity, offering a window into the expansive mind of the man so often said to be Spain's greatest living writer"--

One hundred years of solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

Tells the story of the Buendia family, set against the background of the evolution and eventual decadence of a small South American town

The scandal of the century : and other writings by Gabriel García Márquez

"From one of the titans of twentieth-century literature, collected here for the first time: a selection of his journalism from the late 1940s to the mid-1980s--work that he considered even more important to his legacy than his universally acclaimed worksof fiction"--

I'm not here to give a speech by Gabriel García Márquez

"A collection of the speeches of Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, translated into English by Edith Grossman"--

Love in the time of cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

Set on the Caribbean coast of South America, this love story brings together Fermina Daza, her distinguished husband, and a man who has secretly loved her for more than fifty years

Chronicle of a death foretold : a novel by Gabriel García Márquez

Angela Vicario's husband returns his new bride to her family hours after the marriage, claiming she is a dishonored woman. Angela's family forces her to reveal her first lover's name, and her twin brothers set out to murder the man, Santiago Nasar. As the murder is planned, no one in the town tries to stop the crime, which results in an entire society put on trial for the murder.

The general in his labyrinth by Gabriel García Márquez

Recounts the turbulent life of the great Simon Bolivar.

The autumn of the patriarch by Gabriel García Márquez

The discovery of a South American dictator's rotting corpse in the deserted tangle of his crumbling palace prompts a search through his past and a chronicle of his progression from popular, beloved, unafraid ruler to isolated, frightened despot

The fallen : a novel by Carlos Manuel Álvarez

A vibrant and meticulously constructed debut novel about familial and cultural breakdown. A powerful, unsettling portrait of family life in Cuba, Carlos Manuel Álvarez's first novel is a masterful portrayal of a society in free fall. Diego, the son, is disillusioned and bitter about the limited freedoms his country offers him as he endures compulsory military service. Mariana, the mother, is unwell, prone to mysterious seizures, and forced to relinquish control over the household to her daughter, Maria, who has left school and is working as a chambermaid in a state-owned tourist hotel. The father, Armando, is a committed revolutionary, a die-hard Fidelista who is sickened by the corruption he perceives all around him. As each member of the family narrates seemingly quotidian and overlapping events, they grow increasingly at odds for reasons that remain elusive to them--each of them holding and concealing their own secrets.In meticulously charting the disintegration of a single family, The Fallen offers a poignant reflection on contemporary Cuba and the clash of the ardent idealism of the old guard with the jaded pragmatism of the young. This is a startling and incisive debut by a radiant new voice in Latin American literature

In the dream house : a memoir by Carmen Maria Machado

"In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado's account of a relationship gone bad and bold dissection of hte mechanisms and cultural representations of pyschological abuse. Machado traces the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, and struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming. Each chapter in this inventive memoir is driven by its own narrative trope--the haunted house, erotica, the bildungsroman--through which Machado holds her story up to the light and examines it from different angles. She considers her religious adolescence, unpacks the stereotype of lesbian relationships as safe and utopian, and widesn the view with essayistic explorations of the history and reality of abuse in queer relationships." --book jacket

Recipient of the National Medal, the nation's highest honor for libraries.