LIST: It's Hispanic Heritage Month. Here are Ten Great Books by Latino/a/x Authors from 2023
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In recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month, The National’s Edith Matthias recommends ten books by Latino/a/x authors published in 2023. Many of these books question what it means to be Latin American in the modern day, exploring themes of familial separation, generational trauma, and ancestry as well as cultural reconciliation, pride, and personal restoration.
1. The Wind Knows My Name/ El Viento Conoce Mi Nombre by Isabel Allende. Translated by Frances Riddle. (Ballantine Books)
“We must reform the immigration system and help resolve the causes why people leave their countries of origin. Nobody wants to leave everything and run away, they do it out of desperation.” –The Wind Knows My Name
Considered to be the first internationally renowned Latina author, Isabel Allende has just released her 28th book The Wind Knows My Name. Two stories of love and loss run parallel within this narrative. One recounts the separation of a father and son on the day of Kristallnacht in 1938 Vienna, the other is set eight decades later in Arizona where a mother and daughter endure a similar state of enforced severance.
2. Where There Was Fire by John Manuel Arias. (Flatiron Books)
“These microcosms of time carved out by uncontrollable laughter… transported them back to a room in which everyone was still together – where there was no such thing as absence.” –Where There Was Fire
In 1968 a Costa Rican family faced turmoil after a deadly fire burned the American Fruit Company’s most profitable banana plantation. This incident ruptures protagonist Teresa’s family, leaving behind a smoking rubble of death, disappearance, and unanswered questions that Teresa and her daughter Lyra must dig through to find resolutions. Where There Was Fire is the debut novel by queer Costa Rican-American writer and poet John Manuel Arias.
3. Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo. (Harper)
“It’s silly to have a nickname, but we’d always loved taking apart each other’s names and seeing how else we could arrange the letters into love.” (Family Lore’
Renowned poet and writer of young adult fiction, Elizabeth Acevedo, recently released her debut adult novel, Family Lore. The story is centered around 70-year-old Flor, a woman with the ability to predict the day of someone’s death. With knowledge of this gift, Flor throws herself a living wake, but the motive behind this untimely celebration is unknown. The family saga that is told over the three days leading up to the wake is one that crosses generations of Flor’s Dominican American family to uncover the truths and aspirations of the women of the Marte family.
4. First Gen: A Memoir by Alejandra Campoverdi (Grand Central Publishing)
“To be a First and Only in America is a delicate balance of surviving where you come from while acting like you belong where you’re going.” – Alejandra Campoverdi, First Gen
Alejandra Campoverdi gives an earnest insight into the experience of being raised by a Mexican immigrant mother in Los Angeles. Having achieved great success working as the former White House’s first Deputy Director of Hispanic Media as well as being an advocate for women’s health, Campoverdi talks about the joys and difficulties of what she refers to as being a ‘First and Only’. This is term is used to refer to barrier breaking first-generation individuals.
5. The Haunting of Alejandra by V. Castro (Del Rey)
“Surviving to see change then continuing that change is a form of resistance.” – V Castro, The Haunting of Alejandra
The Haunting of Alejandra is a beautifully chilling horror by Mexican American author V. Castro. Fraught mother of three, Alejandra, is visited by the demon La Llorona, a woman known in Mexican folklore to have drowned herself and her own children. Is this haunting a result of generational trauma in response to Alejandra’s familial estrangement? Or is La Llorona a physical incarnation of Alejandra’s fear of motherhood, depression, and dissatisfactory marriage? Alejandra must find the strength within herself to extinguish her ties to this vengeful spirit.
6. How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz (Flatiron Books)
“Cara, we must not wait to live the life we want. Find a way to be present with the people you love.” – Angie Cruz, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water
Award-winning author of the acclaimed novel Dominicana, Angie Cruz has written a new novel that focuses on the life of Cara Romero, a woman recently laid off from what she thought would be her lifelong job. Amidst the disorder of the Great Recession, Cara begins to look back on her life, questioning her relationships with friends, family, and most importantly, her distanced son.
7. Vanishing Maps by Cristina Garcia (Knopf)
“Imagination, like memory, can transform lies to truth.” – Cristina Garcia, Vanishing Maps
Author of the acclaimed novel Dreaming in Cuba, Cristina García has produced Vanishing Maps, a sequel set 20 years after the debut. The story follows the members of the Cuban del Pino family as they all live out their respective lives scattered across the world. Disconnected from their Cuban heritage, the family strives to understand not only their imperfect relationship with each other but also the bond to their cultural home of Cuba.
8. Plantains and Our Becoming by Melania Luisa Marte. (Tiny Reparations Books)
“We children of plátanos always gotta learn to play in everyone else’s backyard and somehow feel at home.” – Melania Luisa Marte, Plaintains and Our Becoming
The Black Latina experience takes front and center stage in Melania Luisa Marte’s debut poetry collection Plantains and Our Becoming. This poignant collection comes after her poem “Afro-Latina” gained viral traction, receiving over 9 million views. Themes of ancestry, displacement, racism as well as self-love, celebration, and cultural pride are explored in Marte’s rich work.
9. Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of Latino by Héctor Tobar (MCD/Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
“This country’s wealth and power have been built upon our personal ambitions and the intimacies of our families. We have become the scaffolding of the United States, its plumbing, its daily meal, the roof over its children’s head.” – Hector Tobar, Our Migrant Souls
Tobar mixes cultural commentary and autobiography is in his robust manifesto, awarded the $50,000 Kirkus Prize for Non-Fiction for 2023. Former Los Angeles Times journalist Tobar who contributed to paper’s coverage of 1992 riots that won the newspaper a Pulitzer Prize, comes a book that discusses his personal experience as a Latino in modern America. Tobar’s account encourages empowerment and speaks up for younger generations of Latino/a/x people within the U.S who carry the same combination of frustration and hope that he did.
10. Solito: A Memoir by Javier Zamora. (Hogarth)
“Mom likes to call them my ‘angels’ but I worry that takes away their humanity and their nonreligious capacity for love and compassion they showed a stranger.” – Javier Zamora, Solito
This heart-wrenching memoir tells of Javier Zamora’s three-thousand-mile migratory journey from El Salvador to the United States that he completed at just nine years old. Waiting in the U.S was Javier’s parents who he hadn’t seen since the age of five. Accompanied by fellow migrants, Javier formed an unexpected intimacy with these travellers that became just as life-altering as the perilous journey itself.
Edith Matthias is associate editor at The National.
