Latin American Literature

In 1951, a mysterious old woman confronts Pilar Aguirre in the small border town of La Cienega, Texas. The old woman is sure Pilar stole her husband and, in a heated outburst, lays a curse on Pilar and her family. More than forty years later, Lulu Muñoz is dodging chaos at every turn: her troubled father’s moods, his rules, her secret life as singer in a punk band, but most of all her upcoming quinceañera. When her beloved grandmother passes away, Lulu finds herself drawn to the glamorous stranger who crashed the funeral and who lives alone and shunned on the edge of town.

When her father remarries, the honest, innocent Molly Gibson suddenly finds herself with a new stepsister, Cynthia, who is beautiful, worldly and impetuous. This would be more than enough to deal with, but the new wife is the deeply snobbish (and darkly secretive) Hyacinth. Thwarted love, scheming ambition and small-town gossip underlie the warmth, irony and brilliant social observation which link the relationships and the inevitable conflicts as profound change comes to rural England.

When Ollie Sweet is very publicly dumped by ‘The One’, his seemingly perfect world dissolves into misery, self-pity, and a bizarre rooftop meeting with a suicidal man in flip-flops. While most would seek out the support of loved ones at such a torrid time, natural-born journalist Ollie asks the subscribers of his website: how did they get over their failed relationships? When Ollie follows some of their more extreme advice, chaos inevitably ensues.

C. S. Lewis wrote of George MacDonald: "I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself." Lewis also claimed that everything he wrote was influenced by this Scottish pastor and novelist who lived a century before Lewis. George MacDonald serves as an act of appreciation, with Lewis gathering 365 of the best and most profound lines from his mentor as well as providing a preface detailing the impact MacDonald had on Lewis' own literary and spiritual career.

How does a Mexican American, the son of poor immigrants, leave his border home and move to the heart of gringo America? How does he adapt to the worlds of wealth, elite universities, the rush and power of New York City? How does he make peace with a stern, old-fashioned father who has only known hard field labor his whole life? Troncoso tells his luminous stories through the lens of an exile adrift in the 21st century, his characters suffering from the loss of culture and language, the loss of roots and home as they adapt to the glittering promises of new worlds that seem so empty.

This cross-genre anthology written by superstar YA authors from across the Latin American diaspora offers bold new thrills for every monster fan. In these fifteen original short stories, bloodthirsty vampires are hunted by a quick-witted slayer; children are taken from their beds by “el Viejo de la Bolsa” while a military dictator steals their parents; and anyone you love might be a monster waiting to strike. The sinister worlds of these narratives are also magical ones, where supernatural beings can be avatars for justice, vengeance, sisterhood, and empowerment.

La inspiración para escribir este libro le llegó a García Márquez con una insólita noticia que tuvo que cubrir como periodista. El 26 de octubre de 1949 el reportero Gabriel García Márquez fue enviado al antiguo convento de Santa Clara, que iba a ser demolido para edificar sobre él un hotel de cinco estrellas, a presenciar el vaciado de las criptas funerarias y a cubrir la noticia. Se exhumaron los restos de un virrey del Perú y su amante secreta, un obispo, varias abadesas, un bachiller de artes y una marquesa.

The Parliamentry troops believe he will hide in the home of Colonel Beverly, a famous Cavalier - they surround the house believeing they will smoke him out. No King is found and they are told that they have killed the four children who were in the house - but they escape with the old forester, Jacob Armitage, who must now teach them to lose their lace, and velvet manners and behave and look like Puritans

Soy Maya Vidal, diecinueve años, sexo femenino, soltera, sin un enamorado, por falta de oportunidades y no por quisquillosa, nacida en Berkeley, California, pasaporte estadounidense, temporalmente refugiada en una isla al sur del mundo. Me pusieron Maya porque a mi Nini le atrae la India y a mis padres no se les ocurrió otro nombre, aunque tuvieron nueve meses para pensarlo. En hindi, maya significa "hechizo, ilusión, sueño".

Dans l'Angleterre victorienne, Oliver Twist, jeune orphelin angélique, est recueilli par l'assistance ; il est placé chez M. et Mme Sowerberry, fabricant de cercueils et croque-mort de son état. Là, il ne connaît que privations et mauvais traitements. Oliver endure tout, jusqu'au jour où une provocation d'un apprenti le pousse à se battre puis à s'enfuir vers Londres.

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.

Tom Jones, a foundling, is brought up by the kindly Mr. Allworthy as if he were his own son. Forced to leave the house as a young man after tales of his disgraceful behavior reach his benefactor's ears, he sets out in utter despair, not only because of his banishment but because he has now lost all hope of gaining the hand of the beautiful Sophia. But she too is forced to flee her parental home to escape an undesirable marriage and their stories and adventures intertwine.

If you're trying to learn Spanish, the hardest thing is making the leap from the textbook to the real world. But in the age of the smartphone, there's a brand new challenge - online Spanish! Social media has a language all of its own – OMG! #mindblown – and Spanish is no different!

Can you love and hate the same person? I fell in love too fast, too young. I made decisions I thought would protect the ones I love. Now I'm hated for them. Skull is the love of my life. But our life was wrapped up in lies. We were captured by them, and left with nothing when they exploded. How much can a heart take before it breaks and just doesn't care anymore?

What do you do when the doctor says you could die at any moment? Well...after you’ve made a cup of tea, of course. Nathan James is young, successful and has the world at his feet. Unfortunately, he’s also about to die - which ruins things somewhat. And now he’s staring imminent death in the face, Nathan is having to rethink some of his life choices very hard. Then Nathan falls in love with a charming girl called Alison, which is a really stupid thing to do. Because how can you give your heart to someone when it might be about to stop?

Ernesto Vega has lived many lives, from pig farmer to construction worker to famed luchador El Rey Coyote, yet he has always worn a mask. He was discovered by a local lucha libre trainer at a time when luchadores—Mexican wrestlers donning flamboyant masks and capes—were treated as daredevils or rock stars. Ernesto found fame, rapidly gaining name rec­ognition across Mexico, but at great expense, nearly costing him his marriage to his wife Elena.

Esmeralda Santiago reminisces about her childhood in Puerto Rico and her early years in Brooklyn as the oldest of seven (soon to be 11) children. Her upbringing is turbulent on account of her parents’ relentless fighting, which only ever seems to stop when they have another baby. When her youngest brother has an accident, her mother decides to move to New York with her children to seek medical treatment. Arriving in the United States, 13-year-old Santiago experiences uprooting and a loss of identity while she tries to adapt to a culture and language that are foreign to her.

At fourteen, the unworldly, idealistic Jack Easy leaves the luxury of his father's estate in England and sails into a world of action and adventure aboard the sloop of war HMS Harpy. At first, Jack finds it hard to stomach the discipline of naval life and, with his mischievous sense of humor, is always getting himself into scrapes. But soon he is bravely taming a band of mutinous seamen, outwitting a wily and murderous Sicilian nobleman, and breathing the smell of gunpowder and raw steel as the Harpy chases Spanish ships on the Mediterranean.

Under Western Eyes, Conrad's novel of political treachery and oppression, begins with a bomb that kills a hated Russian minister of police along with innocent bystanders. A young student named Razumov hides the perpetrator, then betrays him and becomes a spy among his exiled comrades. He faces a moral dilemma from which there is no escape. This masterwork, published six years before the Russian Revolution, is a chillingly accurate prophecy of what was to come.

Anthropologist Calliope Santiago awakens to find herself in a strange and sinister wasteland, a shadow of the New Mexico she knew. Empty vehicles litter the road. Everyone has disappeared - or almost everyone. Calliope, heavy-bellied with the twins she carries inside her, must make her way across this dangerous landscape with a group of fellow survivors in search of answers. Long-dead volcanoes erupt, the ground rattles and splits, and monsters come to ominous life. Calliope will be forced to reconcile the geological record with the heritage she once denied.