South America Fiction

Born into the household of a wealthy slave owner in Cuba in 1797, Juan Francisco Manzano spent his early years by the side of a woman who made him call her Mama, even though he had a mama of his own. Denied an education, young Juan still showed an exceptional talent for poetry. His verses reflect the beauty of his world, but they also expose its hideous cruelty.

Cuba has fought three wars for independence, and still she is not free. Her people have been rounded up in reconcentration camps, where there is always too little food and too much illness. Rosa knows how to heal sickness with medicines made from wild plants. But with a price on her head for helping the rebels, Rosa dares not go out in the open. Instead, she turns hidden caves into hospitals for those who know how to find her.

It's tough to be 13, especially when somebody's trying to kill you. Not that Egg's life was ever easy, growing up on sweaty, pirate-infested Deadweather Island with no company except an incompetent tutor and a pair of unusually violent siblings who hate his guts. But when Egg's father hustles their family off on a mysterious errand to fabulously wealthy Sunrise Island, then disappears with the siblings in a freak accident, Egg finds himself a long-term guest at the mansion of the glamorous Pembroke family and their beautiful, sharp-tongued daughter Millicent.

When an out-of-season hurricane sweeps through Corinne's seaside village, Corinne knows it's not a typical storm. At first Corinne believes Mama D'Leau - the powerful and cruel jumbie who rules the ocean - has caused the hurricane. Then a second, even more ferocious storm wrecks the island, sending villagers fleeing their houses for shelter in the mountains, and Corinne discovers the storms weren't caused by a jumbie, but by the angry god Huracan.

Caldera always existed in harmony between the creatures who walk by day and those who walk by night - until an ancient evil awakened. In the year since the shadowwalkers’ narrow escape from the Ant Queen, the ants’ destruction has only spread. Gogi, a shadowwalker monkey still learning to wield his fire powers, embarks on a quest with his friends - including a healing bat, an invisible panther, and a tree frog who controls the winds - for a powerful object that can harness the magic of the eclipse to defeat the Ant Queen.

When the precocious Zeze grows up, he wants to be a poet in a bow tie. But for now he entertains himself playing clever pranks on the residents of his Rio de Janeiro shantytown, stunts for which his parents and siblings punish him soundly. Now that his father is out of work, the beatings have become harsher, and life has gotten bleaker. Zeze’s only solace comes from his time at school, his hours secretly spent singing with a Bahian street musician, or his time of refuge with his magical orange tree, which both listens and offers him sage advice.

Prepare for a journey into a world filled with what so many crave - the sweet savoring of a chocolate drop. A drop that can melt even the most troubled realities. But in this nuanced, heartrending story, before good can emerge, there is destruction, the bombarding of a people, their culture, heritage, sacred beliefs, and the very soul that drives their traditions.

Corinne LaMer defeated the wicked jumbie Severine months ago, but things haven't exactly gone back to normal in her Caribbean island home. Everyone knows Corinne is half-jumbie, and many of her neighbors treat her with mistrust. When local children begin to go missing, snatched from the beach and vanishing into wells, suspicious eyes turn to Corinne. To rescue the missing children and clear her own name, Corinne goes deep into the ocean to find Mama D'Leau, the dangerous jumbie who rules the sea.

Death on the River of Doubt takes listeners inside the thrilling journey that unfolded as Theodore Roosevelt and his companions navigated the Amazonian River of Doubt through an unforgiving and unpredictable jungle. With new threats at every turn, from bloodthirsty piranhas and raging rapids to starvation, disease, and a traitor in their own ranks, it seemed that not everyone would make it out alive.

Jorge Luis Borges wrote about Argentina as only someone passionate about his homeland can. On Argentina reveals the many facets of his passion in essays, poems, and stories through which he sought to bring Argentina forward on the world stage, and to do for Buenos Aires what James Joyce did for Dublin.

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.

A young man wakes up at dawn to drive to the Andes, to climb the Cerro Bonete - a mountain untouched by ice axes and climbers, one of the planet's final mountains to be conquered - as an act of heroic bravado - or foolishness. But instead he finds himself dragged by the undertow of memory to Esplanada, the neighborhood he grew up in, to the brotherhood of his old friends, and to the clearing in the woods where he witnessed an act that has run like a scar through the rest of his life.

Esta es la versión completa en audio del clásico de la literatura Colombiana, María. Ambientada en el Valle del Cauca, en el siglo IXX, María es una historia romántica sobre el amor de dos jóvenes, y los problemas que deben afrontar para estar juntos.

Secret agents Jack and Max Stalwart are sent to the Amazon jungle to investigate the disappearance of an important Global Protection Force scientist. Soon, they discover that the scientist's disappearance is no accident. A greedy outlaw is illegally mining for gold and he'll stop and nothing to keep his secret safe. Can Jack and Max save themselves and the scientist from almost certain death?

"La idea de salir a recorrer -y a contar- las grandes ciudades sudacas se me ocurrió cuando pensé que quería tratar de entender qué es hoy América Latina. Hace mucho que no lo intentamos y, en general, solemos conservar esa imagen rural, ecololó de una región que es, ahora mismo, la más urbana del mundo. Cuatro de cada cinco latinoamericanos viven en ciudades, pero no son ciudades como las que uno imagina cuando piensa en Barcelona o en París. Para saber cómo son -cómo es Latinoamérica- decidí volver a hacer eso que siempre me ha gustado hacer: ir, mirar, escuchar, pensar, contarlo." - Martín Caparrós

From Juana Briones and Juan Ponce de León to 18th-century slaves and modern-day sixth graders, the many and varied people depicted here speak to the experiences and contributions of Latinos throughout the history of the United States, from the earliest known stories up to the present day. A portrait of a great, enormously varied, and enduring heritage, this is a compelling treatment of an important topic. Some voices are composite characters, not historical figures.

Twelve-year-old Ana wants nothing more than to escape the future set for her and her classmates in her small mining village. Boys her age are beginning to leave school to become silver miners and girls her age are destined to one day be the wives of miners. But when her often ill 11-year-old brother is forced by their demanding father to start work in the mines, Ana gives up her dreams of school to volunteer in his place. The world of silver mining though is dark and dangerous and the men who work there don't want a girl in their way.

Tavinho vivia viajando de avião com o pai. Mas aquela estava sendo uma grande novidade: era a primeira vez que Tavinho viajava em um avião pequeno, voando baixo sobre a floresta amazônica, pois o doutor Otávio estava interessado na compra de uma grande fazenda para exploração de borracha. Quando os dois sobrevoavam a floresta amazônica, o avião teve de fazer um pouso forçado no meio de uma aldeia de índios.

Rosalba is a nine-year-old Mayan girl living in rural Mexico. Like her mother and grandmother, she weaves stories of her people onto blouses, ensuring that the age-old traditions continue. But new influences are entering her life. A ladina girl from the city, visiting with her scientist father, passes on the astonishing news that the Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world in 2012. Rosalba knows nothing about that, but her village is faced with a bulldozer tearing through the forest, dying wildlife, and cornfields in danger.

Por un florero, Colombia logra su independencia. La historia nos dice que todo comenzó con un florero. Era Viernes, 20 de Julio y día de mercado, cuando un Criollo fue a pedir prestado un florero. Un acto, en apariencia efímero, desató en un enfrentamiento entre Criollos y Españoles y culminó en la independencia de Colombia. Sin embargo, hoy en día es claro que lo que sucedió este día no fue un hecho espontáneo como aquellos que habían caracterizado la vida política colonial.