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The Hummingbird's Daughter
Luis Alberto Urrea - 2005
Sixteen year old Teresita, illegitimate but beloved daughter of the wealthy and powerful rancher Don Tomas Urrea, wakes from the strangest dream - a dream that she has died. Only it was not a dream. This passionate and rebellious young woman has arisen from the dead with the power to heal - but it will take all her faith to endure the trials that await her and her family now that she has become the Saint of Cabora.The Hummingbird's Daughter is a vast, hugely satisfying novel of love and loss, joy and pain. Two decades in the writing, this is the masterpiece that Luis Alberto Urrea has been building up to.
How to Order the Universe
María José Ferrada - 2017
Enchanted by her father’s trade, M convinces him to take her along on his routes, selling hardware supplies against the backdrop of Pinochet-era Chile. As father and daughter trek from town to town in their old Renault, M’s memories and thoughts become tied to a language of rural commerce, philosophy, the cosmos, hardware products, and ghosts. M, in her innocence, barely notices the rising tensions and precarious nature of their work until she and her father connect with an enigmatic photographer, E, whose presence threatens to upend the unusual life they’ve created.María José Ferrada expertly captures a vanishing way of life and a father-daughter relationship on the brink of irreversible change. At once nostalgic, dangerous, sharply funny, and full of delight and wonder, How to Order the Universe is a richly imaginative debut and a rare work of magic and originality.
I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala
Rigoberta Menchú - 1984
Interviews with a Guatemalan national leader discuss her country's political situation and the resulting violence, which has claimed the lives of her brother, mother, and father.
A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies
Bartolomé de las Casas
An early traveller to the Americas who sailed on one of Columbus's voyages, Las Casas was so horrified by the wholesale massacre he witnessed that he dedicated his life to protecting the Indian community. He wrote A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies in 1542, a shocking catalogue of mass slaughter, torture and slavery, which showed that the evangelizing vision of Columbus had descended under later conquistadors into genocide. Dedicated to Philip II to alert the Castilian Crown to these atrocities and demand that the Indians be entitled to the basic rights of humankind, this passionate work of documentary vividness outraged Europe and contributed to the idea of the Spanish 'Black Legend' that would last for centuries.
The Adventures of China Iron
Gabriela Cabezón Cámara - 2017
Pronounced ‘cheena’: designation for female, from the Quechua. Iron: The English word for Fierro, reference to the gaucho Martín Fierro, from José Hernández’s epic poem.) This is a riotous romp taking the reader from the turbulent frontier culture of the pampas deep into indigenous territories. It charts the adventures of Mrs China Iron, Martín Fierro’s abandoned wife, in her travels across the pampas in a covered wagon with her new-found friend, soon to become lover, a Scottish woman named Liz. While Liz provides China with a sentimental education and schools her in the nefarious ways of the British Empire, their eyes are opened to the wonders of Argentina’s richly diverse flora and fauna, cultures and languages, as well as to its national struggles. After a clash with Colonel Hernández (the author who ‘stole’ Martín Fierro’s poems) and a drunken orgy with gauchos, they eventually find refuge and a peaceful future in a utopian indigenous community, the river- dwelling Iñchiñ people. Seen from an ox-drawn wagon, the narrative moves through the Argentinian landscape, charting the flora and fauna of the Pampas, Gaucho culture, Argentinian nation-building and British colonial projects. In a unique reformulation of history and literary tradition, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, with humour and sophistication, re-writes Martín Fierro from a feminist, LGBT, postcolonial point of view. She creates a hilarious novel that is nevertheless incisive in its criticism of the way societies come into being, and the way they venerate mythical heroes.
The Murmur of Bees
Sofía Segovia - 2015
Disfigured and covered in a blanket of bees, little Simonopio is for some locals the stuff of superstition, a child kissed by the devil. But he is welcomed by landowners Francisco and Beatriz Morales, who adopt him and care for him as if he were their own. As he grows up, Simonopio becomes a cause for wonder to the Morales family, because when the uncannily gifted child closes his eyes, he can see what no one else can—visions of all that’s yet to come, both beautiful and dangerous. Followed by his protective swarm of bees and living to deliver his adoptive family from threats—both human and those of nature—Simonopio’s purpose in Linares will, in time, be divined.Set against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution and the devastating influenza of 1918, The Murmur of Bees captures both the fate of a country in flux and the destiny of one family that has put their love, faith, and future in the unbelievable.
The Inhabited Woman
Gioconda Belli - 1988
She is sheltered and self-involved, until the spirit of an Indian woman warrior enters her being, then she dares to join a revolutionary movement against a violent dictator and—through the power of love—finds the courage to act.
Facundo: or Civilization and Barbarism
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento - 1845
Ostensibly a biography of the gaucho barbarian Juan Facundo Quiroga, Facundo is also a complex, passionate work of history, sociology, and political commentary, and Latin America's most important essay of the nineteenth century.
Don Segundo Sombra
Ricardo Güiraldes - 1926
Ricardo Guiraldes, a friend of Jorge Luis Borges - they both founded the legendary magazine Proa - managed to develop a simple and modern language, a high quality mixture of literacy and colourful local camp expressions that earned him a major standing among the best representatives of "criollismo."Even though it may be considered as a continuity with Martin Fierro, more than an extinguished gaucho elegy Don Segundo Sombra proposes new ethical examples to a youth that Guiraldes considered disoriented and restless. Basically structured as lessons to be absorbed departing from inexperience, lessons on labour, amusement, morals, camp chores (horse taming, cattle rodeo, raw hide handy work, animal healing, etc.), they become an example of "lo argentino" supported by a very specific and precise lexikon.Our edition includes more than 300 lexicographic notes, conveniently placed at the bottom of the pages and intended to help the modern reader grasp the exact meaning of the text without obtrusive lengthy interruptions. The notes were made after a careful research work that included the critical Martin Fierro editions by Eleuterio F. Tiscornia, Ed. Losada, Buenos Aires, 1941; by Carlos Alberto Leumann, Ed. Angel de Estrada, Buenos Aires, 1945; and by Santiago M. Lugones, Ed. Centurion, Buenos Aires, 1948; their own notes compared between them and with the critical edition by Elida Lois y Angel Nunez, Ed. ALLCA XX (Association Archives de la Litterature Latinoamericaine, des Caraibes et Africaine du XX Siecle), Paris 2001; with Leopoldo Lugones en El payador, Ed. Centurion, Bs. As. 1948 (and Stockcero 2004); Francisco Castro in Vocabulario y frases del Martin Fierro, Ed. Kraft, Bs. As. 1950, and Domingo Bravo en El Quichua en el Martin Fierro y Don Segundo Sombra, Ed. Instituto Amigos del Libro Argentino, Bs. As. 1968; Horacio J. Becco en don Segundo Sombra y su vocabulario, Ed. Ollantay, Bs. As. 1952; Ramon R. Capdevila 1700 refranes, dichos y modismos (region central bonaerense), Ed. Patria, Bs. As. 1955; Emilio Solanet Pelajes Criollos, Ed. Kraft, Bs. As. 1955; and Tito Saubidet Vocabulario y refranero criollo, Ed. Kraft, Bs. As. 1943"
Kensington Gardens
Rodrigo Fresán - 2003
Known to millions by his pen name, Peter Hook, Fresan's hero has survived the death of his rock-star parents, and a childhood surrounded by 1960s excess, to become the most successful children's author of his generation, best loved as the creator of the time-traveling boy Jim Yang.Over the course of one night, Peter tells his life story--and that of J. M. Barrie, creator of Peter Pan--to the child actor cursed with playing Jim Yang in the movies. Gradually, a fantastical and terrible tale emerges, a tale of shadow identities and suicide, lost boys and foundlings. Moving between the Edwardian age and Swinging London, "Kensington Gardens "is an exploration of the charms and perils of nostalgia and children's literature from one of Latin America's most celebrated young novelists.
Optic Nerve
María Gainza - 2014
The story of her life is the story of the paintings, and painters, who matter to her. Her intimate, digressive voice guides us through a gallery of moments that have touched her.In these pages, El Greco visits the Sistine Chapel and is appalled by Michelangelo’s bodies. The mystery of Rothko's refusal to finish murals for the Seagram Building in New York is blended with the story of a hospital in which a prostitute walks the halls while the narrator's husband receives chemotherapy. Alfred de Dreux visits Géricault's workshop; Gustave Courbet's devilish seascapes incite viewers “to have sex, or to eat an apple”; Picasso organizes a cruel banquet in Rousseau’s honor. . . . All of these fascinating episodes in art history interact with the narrator's life in Buenos Aires—her family and work; her loves and losses; her infatuations and disappointments. The effect is of a character refracted by environment, composed by the canvases she studies.Seductive and capricious, Optic Nerve is a book that captures, like no other, the mysterious connections between a work of art and the person who perceives it.
The Polish Boxer
Eduardo Halfon - 2008
Drawn to what lies beyond the range of reason, they all reach for the beautiful and fleeting, whether through humor, music, poetry, or unspoken words. Across his encounters with each of them, the narrator—a Guatemalan literature professor and writer named Eduardo Halfon—pursues his most enigmatic subject: himself.Mapping the geography of identity in a world scarred by a legacy of violence and exile, The Polish Boxer marks the debut of a major new Latin American voice in English.Eduardo Halfon has been cited as among the best young Latin American writers by the Hay Festival of Bogotá and is the recipient of Spain’s prestigious José María de Pereda Prize for the Short Novel. In 2011 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship to continue the story of The Polish Boxer, which is his first novel to be published in English. He travels frequently to his native Guatemala and lives in Nebraska.
Little Eyes
Samanta Schweblin - 2018
They're following you. They're everywhere now. They're us.In Samanta Schweblin's wildly imaginative new novel, Little Eyes, "kentukis" have gone viral across the globe. They're little mechanical stuffed animals that have cameras for eyes, wheels for feet, and are connected to an anonymous global server. Owners of kentukis have the eyes of a stranger in their home and a cute squeaking pet following them; or you can be the kentuki and voyeuristically spend time in someone else's life, controlling the creature with a few keystrokes. Through kentukis, a jaded Croatian hustler stumbles into a massive criminal enterprise and saves a life in Brazil, a lonely old woman in Peru becomes fascinated with a young woman and her louche lover in Germany, and a motherless child in Antigua finds a new virtual family and experiences snow for the first time in Norway.These creatures can reveal the beauty of connection between farflung souls - but they also expose the ugly humanity of our increasingly linked world. Trusting strangers can lead to unexpected love and marvelous adventure, but what happens when the kentukis pave the way for unimaginable terror?
Season of Ash
Jorge Volpi - 2006
Told through the intertwined lives of three women- Irina, 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.
Talking to Ourselves
Andrés Neuman - 2012
Two love stories. Three voices.Lito is ten years old and is almost sure he can change the weather when he concentrates very hard. His father, Mario, anxious to create a memory that will last for his son's lifetime, takes him on a road trip in a truck called Pedro. But Lito doesn't know that this might be their last trip: Mario is gravely ill. Together, father and son embark on a journey takes them through strange geographies that seem to meld the different parts of the Spanish-speaking world. In the meantime, Lito's mother, Elena, restlessly seeks support in books, and soon undertakes an adventure of her own that will challenge her moral limits. Each narrative--of father, son, and mother--embodies one of the different ways that we talk to ourselves: through speech, through thought, and through writing. While neither of them dares to tell the complete truth to the other two, their individual voices nonetheless form a poignant conversation.Sooner or later, we all face loss. Andrés Neuman movingly narrates the ways the lives of those who survive loss are transformed; how that experience changes our ideas about time, memory, and our own bodies; and how the acts of reading, and of sex, can serve as powerful modes of resistance. Talking to Ourselves presents a tender yet unsentimental portrait of the workings of love and family; a reflection both on grief and on the consolation of words. Neuman, the author of the award-winning Traveler of the Century, displays his characteristic warmth, bittersweet humor, and wide-ranging intellect, giving us the rich, textured, and strikingly different voices and experiences of three singular characters while presenting, above all, a profound tribute to those who have ever had to care for a loved one.