Latin American Literature

Akashic Books’ acclaimed series of original noir anthologies has set a high standard for portraying cities and their neighborhoods in all their dark and violent splendor. Now, Mexico City Noir surpasses that standard with phantasmagorical tales of double-dealing, corruption, violence and self-delusion.... This collection is such a varied literary feast.

Andy Bellows is in a right state. Plagued with insomnia, anxiety and neckache, he’s convinced there’s something seriously wrong with him. And the worst thing is that his doctor agrees. The diagnosis: Andy is in the grip of a self-destructive addiction to technology - he just cannot put that bloody mobile phone down. Texting, tweeting, gaming and online dating - technology rules Andy’s life. His phone even monitors his bowel movements. So how will he cope when he’s forced to follow doctor’s orders and step away from all of his beloved screens?

Dans les années trente, Arturo Bandini, fils d'immigrés italiens, quitte le Colorado pour l'Eldorado, Los Angeles, avec son unique roman en poche et un rêve : devenir un écrivain reconnu. Vénérant les femmes et la littérature, il débarque dans une chambre d'hôtel miteuse, prêt à saisir la vie à bras-le-corps. Une errance sublime parmi les laissés-pour-compte du rêve américain.

Zuleika Dobson, internationally famous prestidigitator visits her grandfather, the Warden of Judas College, Oxford. But Zuleika, "though not strictly beautiful" is a devastatingly attractive young woman, and proves utterly irresistible among the all-male undergraduate body - including the snobbish and trend-setting young Duke of Dorset. Thus begins a chain of events that culminates in a very watery end to the Eights Week boat races...

Professional ballerina Ailsa MacIntyre is at the peak of her career when her world is shattered by a shocking diagnosis. Life-saving surgery leaves her with a fractured memory, little recollection of her husband, Evan, and none of her career as a principal dancer. While recuperating at home, Ailsa hears beautiful music coming from the apartment upstairs, and the sound of the grand piano at the hands of a talented new neighbor sparks her muscle memory. As her recovery progresses, the broken pieces of her past gradually re-emerge, a picture not quite what Evan would have her remember.

Tras terminar sus estudios de arquitectura en Europa, Lavinia regresa a Latinoamérica para emprender su camino como mujer independiente. Pero sus planes cambian cuando conoce a Felipe, con quien establece una profunda relación sentimental. A su lado le llega la oportunidad de implicarse en las luchas populares y los movimientos de liberación de la dictadura de su país, conectando de ese modo con Itzá, una indígena que luchó contra los invasores españoles y que ahora despierta reencarnada en un naranjo para acompañar, apoyar e inspirar a Lavinia.

From a distance, the towns along the US-Mexican border have dangerous reputations - on one side, drug cartels; on the other, zealous border patrol agents - and Brownsville is no different. But to 12-year-old Orly, it's simply where his godmother Nina lives - and where he is being forced to stay the summer after his mother's sudden death. For Nina, Brownsville is where she grew up, where she lost her first and only love, and where she stayed as her relatives moved away and her neighborhood deteriorated.

When hunter Allan Quatermain invited his old friends over to shoot grouse they started relating stories and anecdotes of their time in Africa. Allan draws his friends in with a tale encompassing a beautiful African warrior princess, the hand of a murdered babe, a treasure and a war. FNH Audio presents an unabridged reading of H. Rider Haggard’s tale of action and adventure in darkest Africa.

As a young girl, Selena Quintanilla sang in a band called Selena y Los Dinos with her brother and sister. The family performed at fairs, weddings, quinceañeras, and on street corners in their native Texas. Selena learned how to sing in Spanish and soon became hugely popular within the Latino community - so much so that she became the best-selling Latin artist of the 1990s.

Al pueblo ha llegado «la mala hora» de los campesinos, la hora de la desgracia. La comarca ha sido «pacificada» después de tanta guerra civil. Han ganado los conservadores, que se dedican a perseguir cruel y pertinazmente a sus adversarios liberales. Al alba de una mañana, mientras el padre Ángel se dispone a celebrar la misa, suena un disparo en el pueblo. Un comerciante de ganado, advertido de la infidelidad de su mujer por un pasquín pegado a la puerta de su casa, acaba de matar al presunto amante de ésta.

The first time Isabel meets her father-in-law, Omar, he’s already dead - an apparition appearing uninvited on her wedding day. Her husband, Martin, still unforgiving for having been abandoned by his father years ago, confesses that he never knew the old man had died. So Omar asks Isabel for the impossible: persuade Omar’s family - especially his wife, Elda - to let him redeem himself.

À Middlemarch, cité imaginaire de la province anglaise, vers 1830, la jeune et intelligente Dorothée aspire à de grandes réalisations. Elle épouse le pasteur Casaubon, beaucoup plus âgé qu'elle et espère aider son mari dans les travaux de recherche pour un livre qui devrait être son chef d'œuvre. Mais Casaubon ne la prend pas sérieux, la néglige. De plus, il prend ombrage de l'amitié qui rapproche Will Ladislaw, son cousin, et Dorothée. Ce mariage se révèle être une erreur.

One of America's most influential Hispanics - Maria on Sesame Street - delivers a beautifully wrought coming-of-age memoir. Set in the 1970s in the Bronx, this is the story of a girl with a dream. When listeners meet young Sonia, she is a child living amid the squalor of a boisterous home that is filled with noisy relatives and nosy neighbors. Each day she is glued to the TV screen that blots out the painful realities of her existence and also illuminates the possibilities that lie ahead.

Cuando Héctor Abad Faciolince, autor de El olvido que seremos, leyó esta primera novela, decidió publicarla de inmediato; muy poco después Lumen se sumaría a su entusiasmo. Tras el éxito en Colombia y mientras Francia prepara su traducción, Cómo maté a mi padre llega a los lectores de ambos lados del océano como una de las revelaciones literarias de los últimos tiempos.

Two young poets, Jan and Remo, find themselves adrift in Mexico City. Obsessed with poetry and above all with science fiction, they are eager to forge a life in the literary world - or sacrifice themselves to it. Roberto Bolaño's The Spirit of Science Fiction is a story of youth hungry for revolution, notoriety, and sexual adventure as they work to construct a reality out of the fragments of their dreams.

It's spring in Lake Holly, New York, a time of hope and renewal. But not for immigrants in this picturesque upstate town. Raids and deportations are on the rise, spurring fear throughout the community. Tensions reach the boiling point when the district attorney's beautiful young bride is found hanging in her flooded basement, an apparent victim of suicide. But is she, wonders Vega? If so, where is her undocumented immigrant maid?

Venezuela, 1992. Unknown colonel Hugo Chávez stages an ill-fated coup against a corrupt government, igniting the passions of Venezuela’s poor and catapulting the oil-rich country to international attention. For two rival spies hurriedly dispatched to Caracas - one from Washington, DC, and the other from Fidel Castro’s Cuba - this is a career-defining mission.

Camila is haunted by the death of her sister, Marisol, who was caught by a mudslide during the huracán. Unable to part with Marisol, Camila carries her through town, past the churchyard, and, eventually, to the supposed utopia of Memoria. Urayoán, the idealistic, yet troubled cult leader of Memoria, has a vision for this new society, one that in his eyes is peaceful and democratic. The paradise he preaches lures in the young, including Bayfish, a boy on the cusp of manhood, and Morivivi, a woman whose outward toughness belies an inner tenderness for her friends.

Pourquoi le chat s'en va-t-il tout seul ? Les chats anglais sont-ils vraiment les plus distingués ? Par quel prodige cet animal maléfique est-il devenu, au fil du temps, l'ami incontournable du monde de la culture ? Vous trouverez réponse à ces épineuses questions, et à bien d'autres, dans notre sélection de 17 textes cultes commentés et mis en perspective. Une balade littéraire divertissante et instructive à travers les textes de Baudelaire, du Bellay, Dumas, Poe, Perrault, Carrol, Montaigne, Verlaine, Balzac, Renard, La Fontaine, Champfleury, Moncrif. Textes commentés par Sylvain Trias.

Thirtysomething Flores and her mother, Paula, still live in the same Brooklyn apartment, but that may be the only thing they have in common. It’s been nearly three years since they lost beloved husband and father Martín, who had always been the bridge between them. One day, cleaning beneath his urn, Flores discovers a note written in her mother’s handwriting: Perdóname si te falle. Recuerda que siempre te quise. (“Forgive me if I failed you. Remember that I always loved you.”) But what would Paula need forgiveness for?