Booklists: suggested reading

 

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Latino/Latina Fiction Booklist

 

Books by Latino/Latina writers about Latino/Latina culture.

 

 

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.

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• Portrait in Sepia
  Author: Allende, Isabel
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 26 ISBN: 0066211611 Date: 2001
  PW
  Completing the trilogy that includes her bestselling novels Daughter of Fortune and The House of the Spirits, Portrait in Sepia is a stunning novel about memory and family secrets. Set at the end of the 19th century, it is the richly imagined saga of a woman who is forced to recognize her betrayal by the man she loves and to explore the mystery of her past.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 7.16.01
• Yo: A Novel
  Alvarez, Julia
  Algonquin Books List Price: 18.95 ISBN: 1565121570 Date: 1997
  Publishers WeeklyKirkus
  ALA RUSA Notable
  Sexually magnetic and thrice married, obsessed by human circumstances and relationships, Yolanda Garcia has managed to put herself at the center of many lives. Told from the viewpoint of one of the family and friends first tangled in her web and now frozen in the spotlight her literary fame has generated, Yo! delivers delicious insight into the very nature of artistic creation and the material from which it is built.
  
• In the Name of Salome
  Author: Alvarez, Julia
  Publisher: Algonquin $ 23.95 ISBN: 1565122763 Date: 2000
  KirkusPW
  Based on the lives of two heroic Latin women, Alvarez's sweeping fourth novelspans more than 100 years in the tumultuous history of the Caribbean.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 5/11/00.
• Saving the World: With Don Francisco
  Author: Alvarez, Julia
  Publisher: Algonquin $ 24.95 ISBN: 156512510x Date: 2006
  LJ
  A stunning tour de force--"about a contemporary bestselling Latina novelist, obsessed by the life of a 19th-century Spanish spinster--"that probes the depths of politics, medicine, activism, and love.
  Updated 1.18.06
• The Man Who Could Fly and Other Stories
  Author: Anaya, Rudolfa A.
  Publisher: Univ of Oklahoma $ 19.95 ISBN: 080613738x Date: 2006
  PW
  Thirty years of short stories from the godfather of Chicano literature. - Publisher Marketing.
  Updated 1.30.06
• Cellophane
  Author: Arana, Marie
  Publisher: Dial $ 24 ISBN: 0385336640 Date: 2006
  PW Booklist
  From noted writer and National Book Award finalist Arana comes a debut novel with all the power and grace of her acclaimed memoir, American Chica.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts
  Updated 5.16.06
• The Importance of a Piece of Paper: Stories
  Author: Baca, Jimmy Santiago
  Publisher: Grove $ 22 ISBN: 0802117651 Date: 2004
  Kirkus
  In his first foray into short fiction, award-winning poet and memoirist Santiago Baca maps the territory where old-world traditions contend with new-world ambitions and disenfranchised characters struggle to make something of themselves in the world while somehow keeping their souls intact.
  Updated 12.10.03
• The Weight of All Things
  Author: Benitez, Sandra
  Publisher: Hyperion $ 22.95 ISBN: 0786863994 Date: 2001
  PWLJ
  The last time young Nicholas saw his mother, she was hit by gunfire in a crowded plaza while attending the funeral of a martyred archbishop in war-torn El Salvador. Watching her body dragged away with other victims, Nicholas believes his mother is alive, and vows to find her. Thus begins the young boy's harrowing journey through his war-ravaged country.
  Updated 1/17/01
• Bitter Grounds
  Benitez, Sandra
  Publisher: Hyperion List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0786861576
  PW
  From the author of A Place Where the Sea Remembers comes a powerful saga chronicling three generations of Salvadoran women who are connected by a scorching secret. When finally a letter comes to light that has remained unopened for 26 years, its impact resounds in uneexpected ways. Epic in scope, richly steeped in history, as well as bringing to life the emotions and experiences of those who lived through these cataclysmic times, Benitez's poetic yet unsentimental novel will move and astonish its readers.
  
• Brownsville
  Author: Casares, Oscar
  Publisher: Little, Brown $ 13.95 (paper) ISBN: 0316146803 Date: 2003
  PW
  At the country's edge, on the Mexican border, Brownsville, Texas, is a town like many others. It is a place where people work hard to create better lives for their children, where people bear grudges against their neighbors, where love blossoms only to fade, and where the only real certainty is that life holds surprises.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts
  Updated 2.24.03
• Peel My Love Like an Onion
  Author: Castillo, Ana
  Publisher: Doubleday List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0385496761 Date: 1999
  PWBooklist
  Peel My Love Like an Onion is the breakthrough novel from the author of the wildly praised So Far from God - a lyrical, steamy and moving story of a love triangle set in the colorful world of flamenco dancing. - Doubleday marketing.
  
• Caramelo
  Author: Cisneros, Sandra
  Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 0679435549 Date: 2002
  KirkusPWBooklistLJ
  An extraordinary new novel from the author of The House on Mango Street is a multigenerational story of a Mexican-American family whose myriad voices create a dazzling weave of passion, poignancy, and the stuff of life.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars Lists
  Updated 9.23.02
• Loving Pedro Infante
  Author: Chavez, Denise
  Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux $ 24 ISBN: 0374184114 Date: 2001
  PW
  Teresina Avila is a divorced, thirty-something Chicana working in Cabritoville, New Mexico. Her lover will never leave his wife and ties Tere's heart in knots. Her diversions center around her best friend, Irma, and her membership in the Pedro Infante Fan Club. A hilarious and heartrending story about the fictions women weave to justify loving the wrong mate, this novel confirms Denise Chavez's reputation as one of our most engaging novelists.
  Updated 3.23.01
• The Meaning of Consuelo
  Author: Cofer, Judith Ortiz
  Publisher: FSG $ 20 ISBN: 0374205094 Date: 2003
  Booklist
  This affecting novel is a lively celebration of Puerto Rico as well as an archetypal story of loss, the loss each of us experiences on our journey from the island of childhood to the uncharted territory of adulthood. - Publisher Marketing.
  Updated 10.8.03
• Love Walked In
  Author: De Los Santos, Marisa
  Publisher: Dutton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0525949178 Date: 2006
  Kirkus
  A tribute to classic film and true romance, this is the story of a 31-year-old cafe manager and an 11-year-old searching for her father, and the unexpected ways in which their lives are forever changed by chance.
  Suggested Reading: Romance
  Updated 12.27.05
• Esperanza's Box of Saints
  Author: Escandon, Maria
  Publisher: Scribner List Price: $ 12 (trade paper) ISBN: 068485614x Date: 1999
  LJ
  Like Water for Chocolate meets Candide in this stunning debut novel about a beautiful young widow's search for her missing child - a magical, humorous, and passion-filled odyssey that takes her from a humble Mexican village to the brothels of Tijuana and the streets of Los Angeles.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts
• Come Together, Fall Apart
  Author: Henriquez, Cristina
  Publisher: Riverhead 24.95 $ ISBN: 1594489157 Date: 2006
  KirkusBooklist
  An exciting "New Yorker" debut fiction writer and new voice in Latina fiction delivers stories as beautiful as they are gritty, as haunting as they are immediate.
  Suggested Reading: Debutss
  Updated 3.16.06
• Eccentric Neighborhoods
  Author: Ferre, Rosario
  Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0374146381
  PWKirkusLJ
  This brilliantly imagined book by the author of The House on the Lagoon tells the story of Elvira Vernet, a young woman who must come to terms with her dead mother - before she can understand her father, a man caught up in the event as Puerto Rico is transformed into a spearhead of the Caribbean.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
• The Crystal Frontier
  Author: Fuentes, Carlos
  Publisher: Farrar List Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0374132771 Date: 1997
  LJ
  NYTBR Notable
  This exuberant collection of nine stories contains and alludes to journalism, politics, economics, famous tall tales, and picaresque adventures, all united by the "vitality, variety, and narrative force that Fuentes always gives his work" (La Joranda).
  
• The Years With Laura Diaz
  Author: Fuentes, Carlos
  Publisher: Farrar Strauss & Giroux $ 26 ISBN: 0374293414 Date: 2000
  KirkusPW
  Fuente's richly woven narrative tapestry of the life of Laura Diaz, from 1905 to 1978, is filled with a multitude of witty, heartbreaking scenes and the sounds, colors, tastes, and scents of Mexico. It is the story of a complicated and alluring heroine, whose brave honesty prevails despite her losing a brother, son, and grandson to the darkest forces of the country's turbulent, often corrupt politics.
  Updated 9.14.00
• Bad Vibes
  Author: Fuguet, Alberto
  Publisher: St Martins List Price: $22.95 ISBN: 0312151598 Date: 1997
  Kirkus
  A Latin American Catcher in the Rye - set amidst the political turmoil of the 1980's in Santiago, Chile. Living in an atmosphere of existential malaise caused by the wretched excess and moral decay he sees all around him, teenager Matias finds his basic trust in what is constant starting to come undone.
  
• The Movies of My Life
  Author: Fuguet, Alberto
  Publisher: Rayo $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060534621 Date: 2003
  Kirkus
  From one of the most brilliant minds of his generation to emerge from South America comes an epic novel about the power of American pop culture and a seismologist trying to make sense of the shifting world around him.
  Updated 8.11.03
• The Aguero Sisters
  Garcia, Christina
  Publisher: 0679450904 List Price: $24 ISBN: 0679450904 Date: 1997
  Publishers WeeklyLibrary JournalKirkus
  NYTBR Notable
  ALA RUSA Notable
  The widely anticipated new novel by the author of Dreaming in Cuban. Estranged for more than 30 years, the Aguero sisters, one living in Havana, one in New York City, struggle over their recollections of a dark and hidden family past, as they move unknowingly toward a reunion in Miami.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  
• Monkey Hunting
  Author: Garcia, Cristina
  Publisher: Knopf $ 23 ISBN: 0375410562 Date: 2003
  Library JournalPW
  From a National Book Award finalist comes an emotionally rich and powerful saga of one Chinese-Cuban family. Rendered in the lyrical prose that is Garca's hallmark, Monkey Hunting brilliantly illuminates a generations-long struggle toward a sense of true belonging.
  Updated 4.7.03
• The Ordinary Seaman
  Goldman, Francisco
  Atlantic Monthly Pr List Price: 22.00 ISBN: 0871136716 Date: 1997
  Publishers Weekly BooklistKirkus
  PW Best Books of '97
  L.A. Times Book Award Finalist
  After learning that the ship on which he is to serve is a wreck, sitting idle with no plumbing or electricity, a 19-year-old Nicaraguan immigrant works up the courage to escape into Brooklyn and begin a new life.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  
• Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories
  Author: Hernandez, Gilbert
  Publisher: Fantographics $ 39.95 ISBN: 1560975393 Date: 2003
  PW
  graphic novel
  Updated 11.12.03
• A Simple Habana Melody: From When the World Was Good
  Author: Hijuelos, Oscar
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060175699 Date: 2002
  KirkusLJBooklistPW
  The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love returns to the world of music with this gorgeously written novel about one man's passion for his art, his family, and his country.
  Suggested Reading: Fiction & Music | All Stars
  Updated 5.20.02
• The Sugar Island
  Author: Lamazares, Ivonne
  Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $ 23 ISBN: 0395860407 Date: 2000
  PWLibrary Journal
  Set in 1960s Cuba, as Castro's revolution begins, a girl named Tanya, her mother, and band of other refugees board a makeshift raft bound for Florida. When Tanya and her mother reach shore, they find the American Dream may not be within reach.
  Updated 8.23.00
• The Feast of the Goat
  Author: Llosa, Mario Vargas
  Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux $ 25 ISBN: 0374154767 Date: 2001
  PWBooklistKirkusLibrary Journal
  A tyrant's last days are the focus of this magisterial, long-awaited novel, as Mario Vargas Llosa recounts the end of a regime in the Dominican Republic and the terrible birth of a democracy.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 9.17.01
• The Way to Paradise
  Author: Llosa, Mario Vargas
  Publisher: FSG $ 25 ISBN: 0374228035
  KirkusLJ
  The dramatic lives of two bold, independent adventurers--Paul Gauguin and his grandmother Flora Tristan, a trailblazing women's suffragist--are imagined by "one of the master storytellers of our time" (Chicago Tribune Book World).
  Updated 10.7.03
• Caramba: A Tale Told in Turns of the Card
  Author: Martinez, Nina Marie
  Publisher: Knopf $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375413758 Date: 2004
  LJBooklist
  This fast-paced, feisty tale of female friendship is the debut of a fresh and enchanting new literary voice. By turns a soap opera and a honky tonk spiritual guide, Caramba! combines romance with adventure and rolls them into one big hot tamale.
  Suggested Reading: Fiction & Mystery Debuts
  Updated 3.11.04
• Lovesick
  Mastretta, Angeles
  Publisher: Riverhead List Price: $22 ISBN: 1573220620 Date: 1997
  Publishers Weekly
  
• Women With Big Eyes
  Author: Mastretta, Angeles
  Publisher: Riverhead $ 19.95 ISBN: 1573223468
  Kirkus
  From the Mexican master, a collection of mystical, fable-like stories about the lives of extraordinary and eccentric women and the intuitive powers that all women share.
  Updated 9.08.03
• In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd
  Author: Menendez, Ana
  Publisher: Grove $ 23 ISBN:0802116884 Date: 2001
  Booklist
  This debut collection of tales about Cuban immigrants attempting to make new lives in America is presented by a Pushcart Prize winner, touching on themes of the hopes and disappointments of post-revolutionary Castro Cuba, cultural ties that bind family, and more.
  Updated 4.26.01
• The Love You Promised Me
  Author: Molina, Silvia
  Publisher: Curbstone List Price: $ 14.95 (trade paper) ISBN: 1880684624 Date: 1999
  Booklist
  Silvia Molina Marcela is a professional woman in her forties sifting through her disappointment after an intense, extra-marital affair. While picking up the pieces of her life, Marcela discovers the secret past of her parents. Mexico's last elections (1994), the Chiapas insurrection, the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio serve as a backdrop, and also parallel the emotional vicissitudes in Marcela's own life.
  
• The Matter of Desire
  Author: Paz Soldan, Edmundo
  Publisher: Mariner $ 12 (paper) ISBN: 0618395571 Date: 2004
  LJ
  Paz Soldan--leading spokesperson for the McOndo literary movement, which embraces an urban vision of American pop culture in today's Latin America--combines elements of political thriller and family mystery with a torrid illicit love affair.
  Updated 4.5.04
• Here's to You, Jesusa!
  Author: Poniatowska, Elena
  Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux $ 24 ISBN: 0374168199 Date: 2001
  PWBooklist
  This sensitive retelling of the life of Jesusa Palancares de Aguilar, a Mexican girl whose life is one of tragedy, violence, and servitude that lead to her long history of run-ins with the police. This classic of Mexican literature, reprinted 28 times since its original publication in 1969, is now printed in an English edition.
  Updated 2/7/01
• What Night Brings
  Author: Trujillo, Carla Mari
  Publisher: Curbstone $ 15.95 ISBN: 1880684942 Date: 2003
  Booklist
  The gripping story of a young girl discovering her lesbian identity. Miguel Marmol Prize Winner. What Night Brings focuses on a Chicano working-class family living in California during the 1960s Marci--smart, feisty and funny--tells the story with the wisdom of somecone twice her age as the determines to defy her family and God in order to find her identity, sexuality and freedom. - Publisher Marketing.
  Updated 3.31.03
• The Dirty Girls Social Club
  Author: Valdes-Rodriguez, Alisa
  Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312313810 Date: 2003
  Library Journal
  In this heartfelt and absorbing novel, the author opens up the lives of six upwardly mobile Latina friends in their late 20s. Filled with humor, drama and the redemptive power of friendship, this book promises to be one of the most talked about books of the year.
  Updated 3.31.03
• Make Him Look Good
  Author: Valdes-Rodriguez, Alisa
  Publisher: St Martins $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312349661 Date: 2006
  LJ
  The bestselling author of The Dirty Girls Social Club--soon to be a Lifetime Television series--and Playing with Boys hits Miami in this exhilarating novel of six women and their distinct relationships with one very charismatic man.
  Suggested Reading: Romance Stars
  Updated 4.3.06
• No Matter How Much You Promise to Cook or Pay the Rent You Blew It Cauze Bill Bailey Ain't Never Coming Home Again: A Symphonic Novel
  Author: Yunque, Edgardo Vega
  Publisher: FSG $ 25 ISBN: 0374223114 Date: 2003
  Kirkus
  This sweeping drama of intimately connected families conjures up the ever-shifting cultural mosaic that is America. At its heart is Vidamia Farrell, half Puerto Rican, half Irish, who sets out in search of the father she has never known.
  Updated 8.25.03