Hispanic & Latinx American Literature

2666 (2004) is a novel by Chilean author Roberto Bolaño, published one year after Bolaño's death. Centering around a reclusive German author and his role in investigating the ongoing unsolved murders in the fictional city of Santa Teresa, Mexico, 2666 jumps in location, narrative style, location, and characters over its five sections. The novel is widely acclaimed and was adapted into stage plays three times. The New York Times Book Review ranked 2666 as the... Read 2666 Summary

Published in 2007 by Delacorte Press, A Breath of Snow and Ashes is the sixth book in Diana Gabaldon’s successful Outlander series. Its story encompasses elements of historical fiction, romance, adventure, science fiction, and fantasy. It debuted at #1 on The New York Times hardcover fiction best-seller list of 2005 and won the Quill Award for Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror. Other works by Gabaldon include An Echo in the Bone (2009), Written in My Own Heart’s Blood (2014)... Read A Breath of Snow and Ashes Summary

Across a Hundred Mountains is a 2006 novel by Reyna Grande. It won the American Book Award. The novel tells the story of two women, Adelina and Juana. Every few pages, the novel alternates between each woman’s story. Adelina is an adult working at a woman’s shelter in Los Angeles and has devoted her life to searching for her father, who went missing many years ago. At the beginning of the novel, Adelina finally finds... Read Across A Hundred Mountains Summary

A Cup of Water Under My Bed is Daisy Hernández’s 2014 coming-of-age story that centers the intersection of race, class, gender, and sexuality. The book received Lambda Literary’s Dr. Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award in 2015. Hernández was also awarded the IPPY Award (Independent Publisher Book Award) for best coming-of-age memoir, and the book was a finalist for the Publishing Triangle Award. This memoir highlights the complicated dynamics that shape race, class, gender, and sexual... Read A Cup of Water Under My Bed Summary

... Read A Dog Has Died Summary

Esmeralda’s family relocates from Puerto Rico to Brooklyn in 1961, when Esmeralda is 13 years old. On the cusp of womanhood, Esmeralda receives warnings from her family members, and especially her mother, Mami, to watch out for the many algos or dangers lurking in the city. Struggling to adjust to city life in Brooklyn, Esmeralda misses Puerto Rico, and she dreams of the day when she will return. Initially put into remedial classes because she... Read Almost a Woman Summary

... Read A Long Petal of the Sea Summary

Book Details & Major ThemesPublished in 2020, American Dirt is a work of fiction by Jeanine Cummins, whose other works include A Rip in Heaven, The Crooked Branch, and The Outside Boy. The controversial, cross-genre novel combines elements of a commercial thriller, literary fiction, suspense, and romance. The title refers to the land comprising the geopolitical entity that is the United States of America, and to the contempt undocumented migrants face both before and after... Read American Dirt Summary

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Isabel Allende’s “And of Clay Are We Created” is the final piece in her short story collection The Stories of Eva Luna. The collection, originally published in 1989 and printed in English in 1991, chronicles the tales that the writer Eva Luna tells her lover Rolf Carlé as they rest in bed. Allende fashions Eva Luna after Scheherazade, a key character in the framing narrative for the multi-tale Middle Eastern epic A Thousand and One... Read And of Clay Are We Created Summary

And the Earth Did Not Devour Him by Chicano-American author Tomás Rivera was originally published as a Spanish and English bilingual edition in 1971, translated into English by Herminio Ríos. Evangelina Vigil-Piñón’s translation, considered the definitive one, came out in 1988. The book was awarded the Quinto Sol Prize for literature and was adapted into a film. Born in Texas, Rivera,was himself the son of Mexican migrant farm workers, and worked on farms as a... Read And The Earth Did Not Devour Him Summary

An Echo in the Bone (2009) is the seventh novel in the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. Combining elements of the historical fiction, adventure, fantasy, magical realism, and romance genres, the series follows the adventures of Claire Randall, a WWII battle nurse who accidentally time travels to 18th-century Scotland and falls in love with Jamie Fraser, a Highland warrior. Over the course of 10 planned novels, Gabaldon follows Claire, Jamie, and their family as they... Read An Echo in the Bone Summary

... Read A New National Anthem Summary

Mark Oshiro’s 2018 debut novel Anger Is a Gift is a work of contemporary fiction for young adults exploring the realities of police brutality and racist oppression people of color experience in America. This study guide uses the 2018 edition published by Tor (ISBN: 978-1-250-16702-6). Oshiro is a queer author of color, and this novel seeks to highlight the racial divide in America. He shows through this book that there is no universal American experience... Read Anger Is a Gift Summary

... Read Anita de Monte Laughs Last Summary

Sandra Benitez’s A Place Where the Sea Remembers was originally published in 1993 and won the 1994 Minnesota Book Award. Benitez grew up in Mexico, El Salvador, and Missouri, and she currently lives in Minnesota. Her novel is set in the small seaside town of Santiago, Mexico, and focuses on the lives of the town’s residents. A Place Where the Sea Remembers falls into the genre known as magical realism, a narrative strategy employed by... Read A Place Where the Sea Remembers Summary

A Rip in Heaven: A Memoir of Murder and Its Aftermath (2004) is a true-crime story and memoir by Jeanine Cummins. The book recounts the violent rape and murder of two young women, Julie and Robin Kerry, the author’s cousins, and focuses on the aftermath for their families. Tom Cummins, their cousin who is present during the crimes, is thrown off a bridge into the Mississippi River with the two women but survives. Innocent, he... Read A Rip in Heaven Summary

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz is a young adult fiction novel published in 2012. The novel won a Lambda Literary Award, a Pura Belpre Award, and a Stonewall Book Award. It was also named a Printz Honor Book and has achieved popularity on BookTok. Told from a first-person point of view, the book is a work of realistic fiction set in El Paso, Texas, in the late... Read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe Summary

... Read Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World Summary

Carlos Fuentes (1928-2012) is the best-known Mexican representative of the Latin American Boom literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Alongside South America contemporaries like Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Julio Cortázar, Fuentes challenged the conventions and expectations of traditional Latin American literature. The Boom generation gained unprecedented popularity in Western Europe and, from there, became globally renowned. The trend is most often characterized by experimental forms and politically engaged content.Born in Panama... Read Aura Summary

Revered Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez first published “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”—a work of magical realism—in 1968. Gregory Rabassa translated the short story into English in 1971, and all quotes in this guide refer to this edition.The story begins as a man named Pelayo kills crabs that heavy rains have washed into his house. In the muddy yard, Pelayo finds that something else has also washed up: an old man who cannot... Read A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings Summary

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... Read Balthazar's Marvelous Afternoon Summary

Barrio Boy is a memoir by Ernesto Galarza that narrates the author’s journey from a small village in Mexico to a barrio in the United States. Considered a founding text in ethnic studies, the book was originally published in 1971 and was reissued as a 40th anniversary edition in 2011. Barrio Boy follows the author from his birth in the small town of Jalcocotán in 1905 up until high school. Galarza, who went on to... Read Barrio Boy Summary

The autobiography of Cuban novelist and poet Reinaldo Arenas, Before Night Falls, details his life as a gay man under Fidel Castro’s regime and the consequences of his dissidence. It was published posthumously in 1993. Immediately named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, it has since been adapted into a movie and, later, an opera. Before Night Falls tells the story of Arenas’s life growing up in a... Read Before Night Falls Summary

When Julia Alvarez’s Before We Were Free (2002) begins, the life of Anita de la Torre, an 11-year-old girl in the Dominican Republic, is about to change forever. The novel investigates themes of family, government corruption, superstition, and the power of the written word, all set against the backdrop of the months before and after the assassination of a brutal dictator, Rafael Trujillo. This study guide uses the 2007 Laurel Leaf Reprint Edition.Plot SummaryDuring the... Read Before We Were Free Summary

Bless Me, Ultima is a novel by American author Rudolfo Anaya (1937-2020). Published in 1972 by independent Chicanx publishing house TQS Publications, it is one of the first literary accounts of Chicanx culture to attain widespread acclaim in the United States. The novel is a semi-autobiographical account based on Ayana’s experience of coming of age in post-World War II New Mexico. Anaya explores themes of the Multiplicity within Chicanx Identity, Catholicism, Innocence Versus the Power... Read Bless Me, Ultima Summary

Blindness, the 1995 book by Portuguese author José Saramago, tells the story of a society that’s been struck by a virulent epidemic of blindness. This postmodern, apocalyptic, dystopian novel was originally written in Portuguese, and was translated into English by Giovanni Pontiero with additional help from Margaret Jull Costa. When Saramago won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998, Blindness was listed as one of his qualifying works.Plot SummaryThe plot of Blindness follows the onset—and... Read Blindness Summary

Blood Wedding, a Spanish rural tragedy, was written by Federico Garcia Lorca in 1932 while he was director of the travelling theater company Teatro Universitario La Barraca. The play was first performed at Teatro Beatriz in Madrid in 1933 under the title Bodas de Sangre. It ran briefly in America on Broadway in 1935, where it was retitled Bitter Oleander. It was not well received; the passions and folkloric culture in the play were too... Read Blood Wedding Summary

Bodega Dreams tells the story of Chino, a young man in Spanish Harlem who crosses paths with the legendary Willie Bodega, who is equal parts gangster, activist and dreamer. As Chino is drawn further into Bodega’s world, he becomes increasingly connected with el barrio’s shady underbelly and begins to contemplate the future of the neighborhood.Book I introduces us to Chino (Julio), Sapo (Enrique) and Blanca (Nancy) as junior high students. Chino understands that to have... Read Bodega Dreams Summary

Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa presents the US-Mexico border as a space ripe for sociocultural, psychological, and historical deconstruction. Speaking from her own experiences growing up in South Texas, Anzaldúa redefines the boundaries between practice and theory, personal history and cultural critique, poetry and prose. Writing in both Spanish and English (and omitting translations at times), Anzaldúa writes as a Chicana woman, in the Chicano language, envisioning a new consciousness borne out... Read Borderlands La Frontera Summary

... Read Borges and I Summary

Breaking Through, an autobiography by Francisco Jimenez, is a work of juvenile literature that was published in 2001. The book records the childhood experiences of the author as he struggles to become familiar with American culture, and has been awarded a number of prizes, including The Americas Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature and the Pura Belpre Honor Award.The story commences with a description of the then 4-year-old author, his parents, and his older... Read Breaking Through Summary

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... Read Butterfly Boy Summary

Cajas de Carton, the English title of which is The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child is a collection of autobiographical short stories by writer Francisco Jimenez, who was born in Jalisco, Mexico and crossed the US-Mexico border into the United States as a boy. Jimenez writes about his experience living and working in labor camps and tent cities with his family, and the many long years of intermittent schooling and constant... Read Cajas de Carton (The Circuit) Summary

... Read Call Me Maria Summary

... Read Cemetery Boys Summary

Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a 1981 novella by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez. Told in non-chronological order and in journalistic fashion by an unnamed narrator, it pieces together the events leading up to and after the murder of Santiago Nasar by Pedro and Pablo Vicario. Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a classic example of Márquez's use of magical realism in his writing. The novella has been adapted several times as a film... Read Chronicle of a Death Foretold Summary

The Chronicle of the Narváez Expedition by Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was originally written in 1542, with a reprint in 1555. The chronicle follows Cabeza de Vaca’s memories of his survival after the expedition (led by Pánfilo de Narváez) failed and broke apart, and his subsequent peregrinations through the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. His chronicle stands as an important primary document of the age of the conquistadores. Of particular importance are Cabeza... Read Chronicle of the Narvaez Expedition Summary

Isabel Allende’s novel City of the Beasts tells the story of Alex Cold, a fifteen-year-old boy from California who accompanies his journalist grandmother on a life-altering journey through the Amazon.  The narrative opens with Alex at home in California, angry and frightened over the illness of his mother, who is undergoing cancer treatment. When his mother gets a chance at receiving a promising new treatment in Texas, Alex’s parents send him to stay with his paternal grandmother, the adventurer... Read City of the Beasts Summary

... Read Clap When You Land Summary

... Read Continuity of Parks Summary

... Read Dark Night of the Soul Summary

Daughter of Fortune, first published in Spanish in 1998 (Hija de la fortuna), is the fifth novel by celebrated Latin American writer Isabel Allende. The winner of multiple awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Chile’s National Literature Prize, Allende created this work of historical fiction, in part, to explore the impact of feminism on her own life. Daughter of Fortune tells the story of a young woman, Eliza Sommers, and her odyssey of... Read Daughter Of Fortune Summary

Daytripper is a graphic novel written and illustrated by comic book artists Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá. Originally published in 2010 as a comic book series by Vertigo, the collected series was published as a completed book in 2011. Daytripper won the 2011 Eisner Award for Best Limited Series. Bá has also worked on popular comic series such as Umbrella Academy and Casanova. Both Moon and Bá are twins, and they sometimes refer to themselves... Read Daytripper Summary

Gabriel García Márquez’s 1970 short story “Death Constant Beyond Love” creates an overarching mood of loneliness and repetition to think through the experience of dying. Senator Onésimo Sanchez, the story’s protagonist, travels on his routine reelection campaign knowing that he has “six months and eleven days to go before his death” (Paragraph 1).In Rosal del Virrey, “an illusory village” in the desert but with a distant ocean view, he meets Laura Farina. The narrator calls... Read Death Constant Beyond Love Summary

Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders is a 2005 thriller by American novelist, poet, and essayist Alicia Gaspar de Alba. The novel takes place in 1998 when Juárez, Mexico is experiencing a spate of brutal killings of poor young women and girls, mostly factory workers. The protagonist, Ivon Villa, is a women’s studies professor from Los Angeles who returns to her hometown of El Paso, Texas—just across the border from Juárez—to adopt a baby. When the... Read Desert Blood Summary

José Zorrilla y Moral (1817-1893), was a poet, dramatist, and major figure of the nationalist wing of the Spanish Romantic movement. He was born in Valladolid, Spain and educated at the Real Seminario de Nobles, a Jesuit school, and later at the universities of Toledo and Valladolid. Though Zorrilla’s father hoped his son would become a lawyer, Zorrilla left his studies and went to Madrid to pursue a career as a poet. In 1837, he... Read Don Juan Tenorio Summary

Down These Mean Streets is a 1967 memoir written by Piri Thomas detailing his late childhood through young adulthood. Piri is the eldest son of two Puerto Rican immigrants living in the New York City area with his family. He spends his childhood in the Puerto Rican section of Harlem, though his family later moves to the Italian-American section of Harlem, where Piri gets in fights with the Italian-American kids. One of these fights leads... Read Down These Mean Streets Summary

... Read Dragonfly in Amber Summary

Dreaming in Cuban is Cuban American author Cristina García’s first novel. It was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1992 and garnered positive reviews from readers and critics alike. A multi-generational family saga that shifts back and forth between the experiences and eras of multiple narrators, Dreaming in Cuban explores themes of immigration and exile, family dynamics, political ideology, religion, and the impact of the Cuban Revolution on Cubans and Cuban Americans. The... Read Dreaming in Cuban Summary

... Read Each Tiny Spark Summary

Echo (2015) by Pam Muñoz Ryan is a young-adult novel about the power of music to unite individuals across time, and even save lives: the wide-reaching novel follows an enchanted harmonica to 1933 in Germany, 1934 in Pennsylvania, and 1942 in California, before uniting the characters we meet along the way at Carnegie Hall in 1951. Covering the rise of Nazism in Germany, the tail end of the Great Depression in the United States, and... Read Echo Summary

... Read Efrén Divided Summary

... Read Eleven Summary

... Read Eleven Minutes Summary

... Read Emplumada Summary

... Read Enchanted Air Summary

First published in Spanish in 1987, Eva Luna is a novel written by celebrated Chilean writer Isabel Allende and later translated into English by Margaret Sayers Peden the following year. The story is set in an unnamed South American country believed to be an amalgamation of Chile and Venezuela. The eponymous Eva Luna narrates the epic story of her life against a backdrop inspired by the sociopolitical changes in South America from the mid-1940s to... Read Eva Luna Summary

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... Read Family Lore Summary

... Read Fever Dream Summary

... Read From the Desire Field Summary

Fuenteovejuna (or Fuente Ovejuna) by Lope de Vega, first published in 1619, takes place and is based on true events that occurred in Spain in 1476. The play opens in Amalgro, where Commander Don Fernán Gómez de Guzmán is meeting with Grand Master Don Rodrigo Téllez Girón to push him to back King Alfonso, rather than Ferdinand and Isabella, in the battle for Spain and take Ciudad Real. Guzmánpledges his soldiers and tells Girón that... Read Fuenteovejuna Summary

... Read Furia Summary

Gabi, A Girl in Pieces (2014) is a young adult fiction novel by Southern Californian writer Isabel Quintero. It is a bildungsroman following Gabi’s transition to adulthood, her evolution as a writer, and her growing acceptance of herself. Gabi, A Girl in Pieces is Quintero’s first novel and earned various awards for young adult readers, including the California Book Award (2015 Gold Medal) and the William C. Morris Award for YA Debut Novel. This summary... Read Gabi, a Girl in Pieces Summary

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... Read Gods of Jade and Shadow Summary

... Read Good Night, Irene Summary

... Read Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone Summary

Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America (first published in 2000 and revised in 2011) is a work of historical nonfiction authored by Juan Gonzalez. It provides a comprehensive account of the intersection of Latin American history with US history in the context of ongoing US debates surrounding immigration, which have involved propaganda, mythologizing, and stereotyping, resulting in much fear, anxiety, and anger. Gonzalez seeks to reveal the hidden story behind these stereotypes... Read Harvest Of Empire Summary

Her Body and Other Parties is a short story collection published in October of 2017 by debut author Carmen Maria Machado. The collection, which moves between the genres of fantasy, horror, and satire, was shortlisted for the 2017 National Book Award Fiction Prize and the International Dylan Thomas Prize. It won the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, the Shirley Jackson Award, the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize, and the Bard Fiction... Read Her Body and Other Parties Summary

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... Read How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water Summary

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents is Julia Alvarez’s debut novel and was influenced by her experiences as a young girl living in the Dominican Republic. While the novel’s Garcia girls were born in the Dominican Republic and immigrated to New York, Alvarez was born in New York and immigrated to the Dominican Republic. Like other Alvarez novels, this book explores the tensions and difficulties that immigrants experience throughout their lives. It also provides... Read How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents Summary

... Read How Tia Lola Came to (Visit) Stay Summary

... Read How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie) Summary

... Read How to Tame a Wild Tongue Summary

... Read How to Triumph Like a Girl Summary

Richard Rodriguez (b. July 31, 1944) is a prominent public intellectual, author, and essayist whose writing is especially concerned with education, minority identity, and language. He earned a B.A. from Stanford University and an M.A. from Columbia University, and studied at the doctoral level at the University of California, Berkeley. In his memoir, Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982), Rodriguez explores how his education shaped him. Across a prologue and six chapters... Read Hunger of Memory Summary

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter is Erika L. Sánchez’s debut novel. Published in 2017, the book is a young adult coming-of-age story set in contemporary Chicago. It is told from the perspective of 15-year-old Julia Reyes as she navigates her grief and struggles with mental health, familial relationships, and cultural expectations after her older sister Olga’s unexpected death. The book has won several awards, including the Thomas Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award... Read I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter Summary

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... Read Ikigai Summary

... Read Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs Summary

... Read Infinite Country Summary

“In Praise of Darkness” is a poem, and book, by Jorge Luis Borges. It was originally published in Spanish in 1969, late in Borges’s career—his first book of poetry, Fervor de Buenos Aires, was published in 1923. “In Praise of Darkness,” a free verse poem about Aging and Blindness, The Presence of the Past, and the speaker’s Relationship to Literature, also lists some of Borges’s literary influences, including 19th-century American Transcendentalist writer Ralph Waldo Emerson... Read In Praise of Darkness Summary

... Read Instructions on Not Giving Up Summary

In the Country We Love: My Family Divided (2016) is a memoir by American actress Diane Guerrero (with Michelle Burford). The narrative chronicles how the US government deported Guerrero’s undocumented parents to Colombia when she was 14 years old. The title emphasizes the author’s patriotism, which she projects onto her parents and the undocumented community more broadly with the use of the plural. Guerrero writes in simple prose and organizes the material chronologically, relying on... Read In the Country We Love Summary

... Read In the Distance Summary

Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir In the Dream House chronologizes her experiences in an abusive relationship with a woman. In the Dream House was published in 2019 and won the 2021 Folio Prize and the 2020 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction. The memoir discusses potential modes for queer representation through the use of multiple narrative techniques. As of 2022, Machado lives in Pennsylvania with her wife and works at the University of Pennsylvania.Other work by... Read In the Dream House Summary

Isabel Allende’s In the Midst of Winter is a novel published in 2017 that follows the alternating perspectives of three immigrants whose lives become intertwined after a car accident during a snowstorm in New York City. This study guide refers to the Kindle edition of the novel.Plot OverviewOne night, during a brutal snowstorm in New York City, Richard Bowmaster is driving home when he accidentally crashes into Evelyn Ortega’s car. While he assumes it is... Read In the Midst of Winter Summary

In the Name of Salomé, first published in 2000, is the fourth novel by Dominican-American author Julia Alvarez. Alvarez is a poet as well as a novelist and has also written essays, nonfiction works, and children’s books. Alvarez was born in the United States but raised in the Dominican Republic, and her work focuses heavily on the experience of a Latina assimilating into American culture. Her family’s political activity in their homeland and her own... Read In the Name of Salome Summary

The novel is set in the Dominican Republic, in both 1994—the “present day”—and during the period of Trujillo’s regime. In 1994, Dedé Mirabal lives in the house where her three sisters—Minerva, Patria and María Teresa—and her family used to live. Her dead sisters are known as the “butterflies,” they are martyrs and national heroes. In 1994, Dedé talks to an interviewer about her sisters’ lives and deaths. Her narrative is interspersed with her own memories... Read In the Time of the Butterflies Summary

Into the Beautiful North is an adventure story that parallels the plot of the Hollywood movie, The Magnificent Seven. Set in the village of Tres Camarones in Sinaloa, Mexico, the novel’s protagonist, nineteen-year-old Nayeli, notices that there are no men left in the village – they have all gone north for more opportunities and a better life. Fearing that the village will be taken over by bandidos, and with no real law enforcement or men... Read Into the Beautiful North Summary

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... Read Island Beneath the Sea Summary

... Read Iveliz Explains It All Summary

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In Manuel Puig’s novel Kiss of the Spider Woman, Luis Alberto Molina, a hairdresser, and Valentin Arregui Paz, a Marxist revolutionary, are roommates in a Buenos Aires prison from September to October of 1975. Without the use of a narrative voice, Puig uses dialogue, prison reports, and stream-of-consciousness to tell the story. The majority of the novel is written in dialogue.Molina, serving eight years for the “corruption of minors” is animated and sociable, unlike Valentin... Read Kiss of the Spider Woman Summary

The House of Bernarda Alba: a drama about women in the villages of Spain, or La casa de Bernarda Alba, is a play by Spanish poet, dramatist, and director, Federico García Lorca, that explores themes of sexual repression, inheritance, and violence among three generations of women in rural Spain. The play was Lorca’s last, completed in 1936 only months before his murder at the hands of right-wing nationalist forces at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil... Read La Casa De Bernarda Alba Summary

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La vida es sueño, or, Life’s a Dream, by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, is one of Spain’s most well-known plays. First published and first produced in 1636, during the heyday of Spain’s golden age of literature, Life is a Dream is a play in verse that intertwines a complex family drama with a tale of honor and vengeance. The play begins with a dramatic moment, as Rossaura and her servant, Bugle, happen upon a roughly-built... Read Life Is a Dream Summary

Like Water for Chocolate is the debut novel of Laura Esquivel, published in Mexico in 1989 and then translated into English by Carol and Thomas Christensen. Esquivel has sold over four million copies of the novel worldwide. She is a novelist and active politician serving in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies. She collaborated with her husband at the time to adapt the novel into a film in 1992, which was then nominated for a Golden... Read Like Water for Chocolate Summary

Lost Children Archive is the first English-language novel by Mexican author Valeria Luiselli. Published in 2019, Lost Children Archive was awarded the 2020 Rathbones Folio Prize and was shortlisted for the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction and the 2019 Booker Prize. The novel illustrates the intersections and overlaps between a troubled family’s cross-country journey and the treacherous journeys of “lost” children migrating from Mexico to the United States.Lost Children Archive is also an archive in... Read Lost Children Archive Summary

Love in the Time of Cholera is a classic work of literary fiction by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez. It was published in Spanish in 1985 and translated into English in 1988 by Edith Grossman. The novel was adapted into a film in 2007, which was nominated for several awards including an Oscar and a Golden Globe. Plot SummaryLove in the Time of Cholera is set in... Read Love in the Time of Cholera Summary

... Read Love Redesigned Summary

Lucky Broken Girl is a middle-grade historical novel by Ruth Behar. Main character Ruthie Mizrahi, an immigrant from Cuba, lives with her parents and brother in 1966 Queens. Together they try to quell their homesickness for Cuba while seeking new opportunities in America. When a car accident injures Ruthie, she becomes bedridden in a full body cast for over a year; during that time, challenges and fears she never anticipated give her a new perspective... Read Lucky Broken Girl Summary

Lizet Ramirez comes home to Miami for Thanksgiving during her freshman year of college to find her family turned upside down: Her parents are divorced, her Papi has sold her childhood home in Hialeah, and her Mami, her sister Leidy, and her infant nephew Dante have moved into an apartment in Little Havana. Lizet feels isolated from her home community since leaving for college; no one understands her desire to leave southern Florida, and she... Read Make Your Home Among Strangers Summary

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... Read Marcus Vega Doesn't Speak Spanish Summary

Teodoro Golfín, a renowned eye surgeon, has just arrived at the fictional town of Villamojada in Northern Spain in search of the mines of Socrates. At the request of the wealthy Francisco Penáguilas, Teodoro has come to attempt to cure his son, Pablo, of his blindness. On his way to the mines, Teodoro gets lost. He is aided by the arrival of Pablo, who offers to lead Teodoro to the mines where the doctor can... Read Marianela Summary

... Read Me, Frida, and the Secret of the Peacock Ring Summary

Book Details & Major ThemesMexican Gothic is a horror novel by Mexican Canadian writer Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Set in 1950s Mexico City and the burned-out mining town of El Triunfo, the novel is a horror-tinged thriller that explores the themes of The Feminist Gothic, Colonialism and Imperialism in Mexico, and Death, Corruption and Objectification in the House of Doyle.The novel centers on Noemí Taboada, a socialite with aspirations to become an anthropologist who goes to El... Read Mexican Gothic Summary

Danny Lopez arrives in National City, a suburb just south of San Diego. The area’s proximity to the border makes it heavily Hispanic. Danny has come to spend the summer with his father’s family while his mother and sister are in San Francisco with his mother’s new boyfriend.From the start, it’s clear Danny does not fit in. He is from a beach community in northern San Diego County,where he plays baseball and attends Leucadia Prep... Read Mexican WhiteBoy Summary

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Sonia Sotomayor (b. June 25, 1954) is an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Born and raised in the Bronx, NY to Puerto Rican parents, she graduated from Princeton University summa cum laude in 1976 and Yale University’s law school in 1979. After four and a half years working as an assistant district attorney in New York City, she joined Pavia & Harcourt, a small Manhattan law firm, eventually becoming a partner. In... Read My Beloved World Summary

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... Read My Family Divided Summary

“My Life with the Wave” is a surrealist prose poem written by Mexican poet and author Octavio Paz, first published in 1951 as part of Paz’s collection ¿Águila o sol?. The English translation (Eagle or Sun?) by Eliot Weinberger was published in 1976. Paz’s poetry, essays, and prose frequently underscore Mexican identity, culture, and politics, especially during his time as a Mexican diplomat and ambassador. His travels exposed him to surrealism and existentialism, which had... Read My Life With the Wave Summary

Night at the Fiestas is a 2015 story collection by New Mexican author Kirstin Valdez Quade. The collection won the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award, and after its publication, Valdez Quade was recognized as a “Top 5 Writer Under 35” by the National Book Foundation. In 2021, Valdez Quade revised one of the stories, “The Five Wounds” into an award-winning novel of the same title, establishing herself as an important new voice in... Read Night at the Fiestas Summary

Opening withits titular novella, No One Writes to the Colonel is a collection of short stories by Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, published in 1961. The novella and the other eight stories all take place in small Colombian villages, and Macondo, a Colombian town invented by Márquez. The stories take place during La Violencia, a time of political instability, extreme violence, and civil war between the Conservative and Liberal Parties in Colombia, which spanned from... Read No One Writes To The Colonel Summary

... Read Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market Summary

Set in the seaport city of Santa María de Antigua, in colonial Spanish Colombia, at the end of the 18th century, Gabriel García Márquez'snovel Of Love and Other Demons tells the tragic story of Sierva María de Todos Los Ángeles. The only daughter of the American-born Marquis de Casalduero, Sierva lives with her father the Marquis, and her mother, Bernarda, in a decaying mansion.Neither parent takes an interest in their daughter, so she's raised by... Read Of Love And Other Demons Summary

... Read Of the Threads that Connect the Stars Summary

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One Hundred Years of Solitude, first published in Spanish in 1967 as Cien años de soledad, is an internationally renowned and classic work of literature by Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez. The most highly regarded English version of the book is Gregory Rabassa’s translation, which was first published in 1970. This guide uses citations from the HarperPerennial Modern Classics Edition, which was released in 2006. García Márquez became the fourth Latin American winner of the... Read One Hundred Years of Solitude Summary

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Open Veins of Latin America (1997) by Uruguayan journalist, writer, and poet Eduardo Galeano is a historical nonfiction book about the political and economic development of Latin America. The book celebrated its 25th year anniversary in 1997 by issuing a new edition; it features additional writing from Galeano reflecting on the book and the state of Latin American politics seven years after the book’s first release. This study guide refers to the 25th year anniversary... Read Open Veins of Latin America Summary

Outlander, published by Random House in 1991, is the first in a highly successful romantic novel series written by Diana Gabaldon, a #1 New York Times bestselling author. The series was adapted into a historical drama television series in 2014.Other works by this author include Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone, Dragonfly in Amber, and An Echo in the Bone.Plot SummaryTold from the perspective of 27-year-old Englishwoman Claire Beauchamp, Outlander begins in 1945... Read Outlander Summary

Pedro Paramo is a 1955 novel by Mexican author Juan Rulfo. In the novel, Juan Preciado returns to his mother’s hometown after her death to seek out his father. Rather than his father, he discovers a town populated by ghosts and traumatic memories. Pedro Paramo has been hailed as one of the most important novels of the 20th century and a vital foundation stone in the genre of magical realism. This guide uses the 2014... Read Pedro Paramo Summary

Petey is middle grade novel written by Ben Mikaelsen and published in 1998. Mikaelsen is the author of 10 novels for young adults and the winner of several awards for his work. Petey is dedicated to and based on the life of Clyde Cothern, a Montana man with cerebral palsy who was misdiagnosed as intellectually disabled and confined to Montana State Hospital in the 1920s. Mikaelsen and Cothern shared a close personal friendship, and while... Read Petey Summary

Phaedra is one of the 10 surviving Roman tragedies attributed to Lucius Annaeus Seneca. It was probably composed in the first half of the first century CE, during the time when the Julio-Claudian Dynasty was in power in Rome. Considered one of Seneca’s most influential plays, Phaedra tells the story of Phaedra’s disastrous and unrequited passion for her stepson Hippolytus, loosely drawing on Euripides’s much earlier Greek tragedy, Hippolytus. The play explores themes such as... Read Phaedra Summary

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Pocho is a 1959 novel by José Antonio Villarreal. Often considered the first Chicano novel, it was a critical success and an important landmark in American literature. This guide refers to the 1989 Anchor Books edition.Plot SummaryPocho is a bildungsroman, telling the coming-of-age story of young Richard Rubio. However, the story starts before his birth with the tale of how his father, Juan Manuel Rubio, first came to America. A soldier who fought alongside Pancho... Read Pocho Summary

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Rain of Gold recounts author Victor Villaseñor’s family history through the early 20th century, when his parents immigrated to America to escape the violence of the Mexican Revolution. The book was inspired by stories from his grandmother and father, which Villaseñor came to view with skepticism as an adult. He devoted 12 years to researching his family’s history, which included conducting hundreds of hours of interviews with his parents, Lupe and Juan Salvador, and embarking... Read Rain of Gold Summary

In 2008, Francisco Jiménez published Reaching Out, the third in his series of autobiographical memoirs for young adults. The first two books in the series chart Jiménez’s childhood and teenage years as the son of Mexican immigrants in southern California. Reaching Out starts in 1962 as Francisco (known as Frank) travels with his family to the campus of Santa Clara University to begin college. Attending university is a hard-won blessing for Frank, the fruit of... Read Reaching Out Summary

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Riding Freedom, written by Pam Muñoz Ryan, was originally published in 1998 and won several awards, including the 2000 California Young Reader Medal. This fictionalized biography of the real Charlotte Parkhurst, better known as One-eyed Charley, tells the story of the first female to vote in the United States. She became a famous stagecoach driver and a property owner. How she accomplished these things before women were granted suffrage is detailed in this fast-paced narrative... Read Riding Freedom Summary

Rosaura a las diez (English: Rosa at Ten O’Clock) is a 1955 mystery novel by the Argentinian lawyer, journalist, and novelist Marco Denevi (1920-1998). It follows the enigmatic affair between Camilo Canegato, an unassuming painting restorer, and his beautiful lover Rosa, which culminates in Rosa’s murder following their wedding. The story is delivered through five witness testimonies to the local police inspector. The first witness is Mrs. Milagros, the owner of Canegato’s boarding house. The... Read Rosaura A Las Diez Summary

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Signs Preceding the End of the World is a 2009 novel by Mexican author Yuri Herrera. The novel examines personal and geopolitical issues concerning the United States-Mexico border, although it does not mention these nations by name, referring instead to North and South. Herrera is a writer, professor, and political scientist, currently teaching at the University of New Orleans. Herrera’s first novel, Kingdom Cons, won the Premio Binacional de Novela Joven Frontera de Palabras (Border... Read Signs Preceding the End of the World Summary

First published in 1990, the creative memoir Silent Dancing: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood explores the childhood and adolescence of author Judith Ortiz Cofer. This study guide uses the second edition published in 1991 by Arte Público Press.Born in Puerto Rico, Cofer grew up moving between a Puerto Rican village and Paterson, New Jersey, where her father was stationed with the US Navy. Through a series of essays and poems, Cofer examines... Read Silent Dancing: A Partial Remembrance Of A Puerto Rican Childhood Summary

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So Far from God, by Ana Castillo, follows the lives of Sofi and her four daughters Esperanza, Caridad, Fe, and La Loca. They live in the small town of Tome, New Mexico, and endure hardship after hardship. The novel moves back and forth in time fluidly, often visiting the same periods more than once to provide more information. At eighteen, Sofi marries Domingo, a disreputable gambler. After the birth of La Loca, Sofi banishes Domingo from... Read So Far from God Summary

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A loose adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey, Guadalupe Garcia McCall’s Summer of the Mariposas (2012) follows five Mexican American sisters on an epic journey from Texas to Mexico. Drawing deeply from Mexican folklore, the book’s genre blends magical realism and fantasy. The book was a 2013 Andre Norton Award Nominee, won the Westchester Fiction Award, and made the list of 2012 School Library Journal Best Books. Guadalupe Garcia McCall was born in Piedras Negras in Coahuila... Read Summer of the Mariposas Summary

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Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions is Valeria Luiselli’s 2017 book-length essay exploring the influx of undocumented child migrants from Latin America that began in 2014. Through her work as a volunteer translator, Luiselli became intimately aware of what these children experienced, and the essay argues that their inhumane treatment at the hands of American bureaucracy is an unjust denial of due process and the core principles of the American Dream... Read Tell Me How It Ends Summary

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The Angel's Game is a 2008 supernatural mystery novel by the Spanish author Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Set in Barcelona in the 1920s and 1930s, the book chronicles a young crime novelist's efforts to unravel an occult conspiracy amid the political turmoil of pre-Francoist Spain. It is the second entry in Zafón's Cemetery of Forgotten Books series and a prequel to 2001's Shadow of the Wind, but The Angel's Game is designed to be read as... Read The Angel's Game Summary

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The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel García Márquez debuted in Spain in 1975. The English translation published in 1976. Márquez’s most notable work, One Hundred Years of Solitude, earned him a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982 and reflects his distinct magical realist style, an artistic genre first recognized in literature in predominantly Latin American writing during the 1940s. The Autumn of the Patriarch, published seven years later, also features Márquez’s magical style and... Read The Autumn of the Patriarch Summary

The Barbarian Nurseries is a contemporary novel set in Los Angeles and other neighborhoods in Orange County. Author Héctor Tobar is a native of Los Angeles and is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and journalist, previously writing weekly columns and acting as a foreign correspondent for the LA Times. Both this novel and his previous work of fiction focus primarily on the lives of immigrants in California. The Barbarian Nurseries was a New York Times Notable... Read The Barbarian Nurseries Summary

“The Book of Sand” by Jorge Luis Borges is a short story dealing with humankind’s inability to grasp the infinite, whether in spirituality or in physical reality. Borges is one of the most well-known Latin American authors, as well as one of the most notable postmodernists of the 20th century. Like much of Borges’s work, “The Book of Sand” contains themes and motifs of the infinite, the nature of literature, spirituality, and postcolonial thought. “The... Read The Book of Sand Summary

The Book of Unknown Americans (2014) is a novel by American author Christina Henríquez. The story follows two families, one Mexican and one Panamanian, as they navigate the experience of being Latin American immigrants in the United States. The Mexican girl, Maribel, and Panamanian boy, Mayor, fall in love, which brings the families together. While mainly fictional, The Book of Unknown Americans is inspired by Henríquez’s father’s experience as a Mexican immigrant in the United... Read The Book of Unknown Americans Summary

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a 2007 novel by the Dominican American author Junot Díaz. Its title character is a young overweight Dominican American man obsessed with fantasy novels, superhero comics, and tabletop role-playing games. Using Spanish neologisms, magical realism, and references to late-20th-century nerd culture, Díaz weaves a multigenerational family saga chronicling life under the murderous Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo and the subsequent Dominican diaspora to the United States. Widely praised... Read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Summary

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