As you may know, this year, as part of my “Read the World Challenge,” I decided to focus on Latin America and launch Read More Latin American Authors in 2025 — a sort of challenge within a challenge. And I think it’s time for a long-overdue update.
You can read the rules here, but the idea is to complete a sort of bingo by reading one book for each category.
Here’s my progress so far:
Of the nine, I’ve read six, and I’m currently reading Affections by Rodrigo Hasbún (Bolivia), so I’m only two books short of completing the challenge.
But then I decided to update my maps and realized this:
I’m actually very close to reading a book from every country in South America — I’m only missing five:
- Bolivia
- Ecuador
- Guyana
- Paraguay
- Suriname
And since I’m currently reading a book by a Bolivian author, I’m truly close. So finding authors from the remaining four countries will be my goal for the rest of the year.
I’ll keep you all posted. In the meantime, here are some notes or blurbs about the books I’ve read — since I won’t be posting full reviews for each one:
A book from Central America ✅
Dominicana by Angie Cruz (Dominican Republic)
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. (from Storygraph)
A book from South America ✅
Daugther of Fortune by Isabel Allende (Chile)
This is the first book of a trilogy that ends with House of the Spirits, one of the most famous Magical Realism classics. In this first book, the story is set in the 1840s. We follow the story of Eliza Sommers, an orphan who is raised by a Victorian spinster in Valparaíso, Chile. She falls in love with a man and decides to follow him as he tries his luck in the Gold Rush in the hills of California.
A book from Mexico – to read
Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel (Mexico)
Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico became a best-selling phenomenon with its winning blend of poignant romance and bittersweet wit.
The number one bestseller in Mexico and America for almost two years, and subsequently a bestseller around the world, Like Water For Chocolate is a romantic, poignant tale, touched with moments of magic, graphic earthiness, bittersweet wit – and recipes. (from Storygraph)
A book published before the year 2000 ✅
Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid (Antigua and Barbuda)
Annie John is a haunting and provocative story of a young girl growing up on the island of Antigua. A classic coming-of-age story in the tradition of The Catcher in the Rye and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Kincaid’s novel focuses on a universal, tragic, and often comic theme: the loss of childhood. Annie’s voice–urgent, demanding to be heard–is one that will not soon be forgotten by readers. (from Storygraph)
New Author (debut after 2010) ✅
Simpatía by Rodrigo Blanco Calderón (Venezuela)
Simpatía is set in the Venezuela of Nicolas Maduro amid a mass exodus of the intellectual class who have been leaving their pets behind. Ulises Kan, the protagonist and a movie buff, receives a text message from his wife, Paulina, saying she is leaving the country (and him). Ulises is not heartbroken but liberated by Paulina’s departure. Two other events end up disrupting his life even further: the return of Nadine, an unrequited love from the past, and the death of his father-in-law, General Martín Ayala. Thanks to Ayala’s will, Ulises discovers that he has been entrusted with a mission—to transform Los Argonautas, the great family home, into a shelter for abandoned dogs. (from Storygraph)
A book by any LA author ✅
Where There Was Fire by John Manuel Arias (Costa Rica)
Costa Rica, 1968. When a lethal fire erupts at the American Fruit Company’s most lucrative banana plantation burning all evidence of a massive cover-up, the future of Teresa Cepeda Valverde’s family is changed for ever. (from Storygraph)
A translated book ✅
Affections by Rodrigo Hasbún (Bolivia)
Inspired by real events, Affections is the story of the eccentric, fascinating Ertl clan, headed by the egocentric and extraordinary Hans, once the cameraman for the Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl. Shortly after the end of World War II, Hans and his family flee to Bolivia to start over. There, the ever-restless Hans decides to embark on an expedition in search of the fabled lost Inca city of Paititi, enlisting two of his daughters to join him on his outlandish quest into the depths of the Amazon, with disastrous consequences. (from Storygraph)
A non-fiction book (to read)
We Will Not be Saved by Nemonte Nenquimo (Ecuador)
Born into the Waorani tribe of Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest, Nemonte Nenquimo was taught about plant medicines, foraging, oral storytelling, and shamanism by her elders. Age 14, she left the forest for the first time to study with an evangelical missionary group in the city. Eventually, her ancestors began appearing in her dreams, pleading with her to return and embrace her own culture. (from Storygraph)
A classic of LA Literature ✅
The House of the Spirits, by Isabel Allende (Chile)
The House of the Spirits, the unforgettable first novel that established Isabel Allende as one of the world’s most gifted storytellers, brings to life the triumphs and tragedies of three generations of the Trueba family. The patriarch Esteban is a volatile, proud man whose voracious pursuit of political power is tempered only by his love for his delicate wife Clara, a woman with a mystical connection to the spirit world. When their daughter Blanca embarks on a forbidden love affair in defiance of her implacable father, the result is an unexpected gift to Esteban: his adored granddaughter Alba, a beautiful and strong-willed child who will lead her family and her country into a revolutionary future. (from Storygraph)
Check more Latin American literature:
– Latin America page
– Book Review: Island Beneath the Sea
– Doramar: Stories of Those Who Were Forgotten
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