Latin American Literature

The stories in This Is How You Lose Her, by turns hilarious and devastating, raucous and tender, lay bare the infinite longing and inevitable weaknesses of our all-too-human hearts. They capture the heat of new passion, the recklessness with which we betray what we most treasure, and the torture we go through - "the begging, the crawling over glass, the crying" - to try to mend what we've broken beyond repair. They recall the echoes that intimacy leaves behind, even where we thought we did not care.

A collection of humorous, sexy, and highly neurotic tales about parenting, long-term relationships, systemic and interpersonal racism, and class conflict from the author of The Town of Babylon, The People Who Report More Stress deftly and poignantly expresses the frustration of knowing the problems and solutions to our society’s inequities but being unable to do anything about them.

Ana María Luna Valdés has strived to be the perfect daughter, the perfect niece, and the perfect representative of the powerful Luna family. So when Ana María is secretly sent to London with her sisters to seek refuge from the French occupation of Mexico, she experiences her first taste of freedom far from the judgmental eyes of her domineering father. If only she could ignore the piercing looks she receives across ballroom floors from the austere Mr. Fox.

Love shouldn’t come in threes, so why is this happening to me? They say love is spilled from the veins and onto the skin of lovers. Bleed, bleed, bleed until they set you free. My blood will shed until one wins. They’re destined to destroy one another, and I’m caught in the middle. Will there be anyone left?

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...

The 1660s were a time of turmoil in England: Cromwell had been defeated and Charles II, who was sympathetic to the Catholics, was restored to the throne; the Dutch declared war on England; the Plague raged; and the Great Fire of London destroyed half the city! Our hero, Cyril, at the death of his father Sir Aubrey Shenstone, inherits nothing except his father's title, and works as a bookkeeper for various London tradesmen.

Dans un village des Caraïbes, la légende d'un trésor disparu vient bouleverser l'existence de la famille Otero. À la recherche du butin du capitaine Henry Morgan, dont le navire aurait échoué dans les environs trois cents ans plus tôt, les explorateurs se succèdent. Tous, dont l'ambitieux Severo Bracamonte, vont croiser le chemin de Serena Otero, l'héritière de la plantation de cannes à sucre qui rêve à d'autres horizons.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908) was the greatest writer ever to come from Brazil and one of the masters of nineteenth-century fiction. Susan Sontag calls him "the greatest writer ever produced in Latin America", surpassing even Borges. Harold Bloom says that Machado is "the supreme black literary artist to date". And Allen Ginsburg calls him "another Kafka". And The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas is his masterpiece, a dazzling, tragic, and profound novel that belongs next to the greatest works of his contemporaries Melville and Dostoevsky.

Laissez-vous gagner par cette famille fantaisiste digne d'Almodóvar. Réunion de famille impromptue dans un café. Fernando, sa mère, Amalia, ses deux sœurs, Emma et Silvia. Tous espèrent un coup de téléphone qui tarde à arriver. L'attente, fébrile, est ponctuée de scènes savoureuses, de quiproquos et de malentendus. Les vérités cachées ou à demi dites s'égrènent sans fin. Et on rit aux larmes de cette comédie familiale plus profonde qu'il n'y paraît.

u chamo-me Theodoro — e fui amanuense do Ministerio do Reino. N’esse tempo vivia eu á travessa da Conceição n.º 106, na casa d’hospedes da D. Augusta, a esplendida D. Augusta, viuva do major Marques.

In the 1880's, an American senator observes, with some perplexity, English country life and all of its social echelons. To add some spice along the way, we follow the romances and intrigues of the flirtatious Arabella Trefoil.

Omega Morales’s family has been practicing magic for centuries in Noche Buena. But over the years, the town's reputation for the supernatural is no longer one the people carry with pride. So Omega’s family keeps to themselves, and in private, they’re Empaths—diviners who can read and manipulate the emotions of people and objects around them. But Omega’s powers don’t quite work, and it leaves her feeling like an outsider in her own family.

Space-obsessed 12-year-old Paola Santiago and her two best friends, Emma and Dante, know the rule: Stay away from the river. It's all they've heard since a schoolmate of theirs drowned a year ago. Pao is embarrassed to admit that she has been told to stay away for even longer than that, because her mother is constantly warning her about La Llorona, the wailing ghost woman who wanders the banks of the Gila at night, looking for young people to drag into its murky depths.

Monica a abandonné sa carrière d'avocate pour réaliser son rêve : ouvrir un café sur Fulham Road. Le jour où un de ses clients oublie son carnet sur une table, elle ne peut s'empêcher de le lire. Les premières pages lui révèlent la confession de Julian Jessop, un artiste excentrique, âgé de soixante-dix-neuf ans qui exprime toute sa tristesse et sa solitude depuis la mort de sa femme. Touchée par cette idée de révéler des sentiments intimes à des inconnus, Monica décide de continuer le carnet avant de le déposer dans un bar à vin.

Larimar Cintrón works hard at three things: her job as brand manager for Beacon Café, a New York based corporate bakery chain; taking care of her parents and her abuela; and hiding that she’s a ciguapa—a mythical creature of Dominican folklore with long, straight hair and backwards-facing feet. Larimar may only be a ciguapa on full moons, but she feels like an outsider in her family the rest of the month too. Her love of ’90s punk rock music and style further sets her apart.

Cuando Eufrasia Vela empieza a trabajar como cuidadora de ancianos, no sospecha que su oficio la llevará a una encrucijada existencial. La íntima relación que mantiene con doña Carmen, el doctor Harrison y Los Siete Magníficos—entrañables personajes que se apoderan de su pensamiento y su cariño—la obliga a replantearse su papel de madre y hermana, las vicisitudes de la longevidad, las formas de la compasión y el sorpresivo valor que los cuyes, esos conejillos de Indias tan peculiares, adquieren en su presupuesto moral.

When his father falls ill, Andrés, a professor of public health, returns to his suburban hometown to tend to his father's recovery. Reevaluating his rocky marriage in the wake of his husband’s infidelity and with little else to do, he decides to attend his 20-year high school reunion, where he runs into the long-lost characters of his youth.

The first part of the novel involves debates about rationalism and religion between a Professor Lucifer and a monk named Michael, while the rest of the narrative concerns dispute between a Jacobite Catholic named Maclan and an atheist socialist named Turnbull. Both hold fanatic opinions and prepare for a duel that is proposed but never fought, inspiring a slew of comic adventures with allegorical dimensions.

A chilling novel about the nightmare of a corrupt and brutal dictatorship. The star of Roberto Bolano's hair-raising novel Distant Star is Alberto Ruiz-Tagle, an air force pilot who exploits the 1973 coup to launch his own version of the New Chilean Poetry, a multimedia enterprise involving sky-writing, poetry, torture, and photo exhibitions. For our unnamed narrator, who first encounters this "star" in a college poetry workshop, Ruiz-Tagle becomes the silent hand behind every evil act in the darkness of Pinochet's regime.

Elvira Carr believes in rules. She also strongly believes in crisp schedules, clear guidelines, and taking people at face value. Not that the 27-year-old sees many people. After several unfortunate incidents, her overbearing mother keeps her at home. But when her mother has a stroke, Elvira is suddenly on her own. To help her navigate a world that is often puzzling, she draws up seven ironclad rules. Armed with these, a notebook full of questions, and guidance from a helpful neighbor, she takes charge of herself.