To help celebrate National Latinx Heritage Month—which runs annually from September 15 to October 15— I have collected 13 books published this year by Latine authors.
Nonfiction
Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race & the Meanings & Myths of “Latino” by Héctor Tobar
Composed as a direct address to the young people who identify or have been classified as “Latino,” the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Héctor Tobar delivers a definitive and personal exploration of what it means to be Latino in the United States right now and the first account of the historical and social forces that define Latino identity. Taking on the impacts of colonialism, public policy, immigration, media, and pop culture, Our Migrant Souls decodes the meaning of “Latino” as a racial and ethnic identity in the modern United States, and gives voice to the anger and the hopes of young Latino people who have seen Latinidad transformed into hateful tropes and who have faced insult and division―a story as old as this country itself.
Publication Date: May 9, 2023
Genre: Race & Ethnic Studies
Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice by Cristina Rivera Garza
*Longlisted for the National Book Award in Nonfiction* September 2019. Cristina Rivera Garza travels from her home in Texas to Mexico City, in search of an old, unresolved criminal file. “My name is Cristina Rivera Garza,” she wrote in her request to the attorney general, “and I am writing to you as a relative of Liliana Rivera Garza, who was murdered on July 16, 1990.” It’s been twenty-nine years. Twenty-nine years, three months, and two days since Liliana was murdered by an abusive ex-boyfriend—and Cristina knows there is only a slim chance of recovering the file. And yet, inspired by feminist movements across the world and enraged by the global epidemic of femicide and intimate partner violence, she embarks on a path toward justice. Liliana’s Invincible Summer is the account—and the outcome—of that extraordinary quest.
Publication Date: February 28, 2023
Genre: Memoir, True Crime
First Gen: A Memoir by Alejandra Campoverdi
Alejandra Campoverdi has been a child on welfare, a White House aide to President Obama, a Harvard graduate, a gang member’s girlfriend, and a candidate for U.S. Congress. In this unflinching memoir about navigating social mobility as a first gen Latina, Campoverdi offers both a riveting personal story and an examination of the unacknowledged emotional tolls of being a trailblazer.
Publication Date: September 12, 2023
Genre: Memoir
Fiction
The Faraway World: Stories by Patricia Engel
Two Colombian expats meet as strangers on the rainy streets of New York City, both burdened with traumatic pasts. In Cuba, a woman discovers her deceased brother’s bones have been stolen, and the love of her life returns from Ecuador for a one-night visit. A cash-strapped couple hustles in Miami, to life-altering ends. From the author of Infinite Country, this rich and compelling collection of ten exquisite, award-winning short stories set across the Americas are linked by themes of migration, sacrifice, and moral compromise.
Publication Date: January 24, 2023
Genre: Short Stories, Literary Fiction
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez
A woman’s mysterious death puts her husband and son on a collision course with her demonic family in the first novel to be translated into English by the International Booker Prize–shortlisted author Mariana Enriquez. Moving back and forth in time, from London in the swinging 1960s to the brutal years of Argentina’s military dictatorship and its turbulent aftermath, Our Share of Night is a novel like no other: a family story, a ghost story, a story of the occult and the supernatural, a book about the complexities of love and longing with queer subplots and themes.
Publication Date: February 7, 2023
Genre: Gothic Fiction, Horror, Translated Fiction
The Shamshine Blind by Paz Pardo
A beguiling blend of noir detective story and science fiction perfect for fans of Michael Chabon and Emily St. John Mandel, this unputdownable debut imagines a world where emotions have been weaponized, and a small-town law enforcement agent uncovers a conspiracy to take down what’s left of American democracy.
Publication Date: February 14, 2023
Genre: Science Fiction, Crime, Alternative History
What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez by Claire Jiménez
A powerful, hilarious, and heartbreaking debut novel of a Puerto Rican family in Staten Island who discovers their long‑missing sister is potentially alive and cast on a reality TV show, and they set out to bring her home
Publication Date: March 7, 2023
Genre: Literary Fiction
Review | Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | Storygraph
The Cuban Heiress by Chanel Cleeton
In 1934, a luxury cruise becomes a fight for survival as two women’s pasts collide on a round-trip voyage from New York to Havana in New York Times bestselling author Chanel Cleeton’s page-turning new novel inspired by the true story of the SS Morro Castle.
Publication Date: April 11, 2023
Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery
Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Daughter of Doctor Moreau and Mexican Gothic comes a fabulous meld of Mexican horror movies and Nazi occultism: a dark thriller about the curse that haunts a legendary lost film—and awakens one woman’s hidden powers.
Publication Date: July 18, 2023
Genre: Supernatural Thriller, Horror
Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo
From the bestselling, National Book Award–winning author Elizabeth Acevedo comes her first novel for adults, the story of one Dominican American family told through the voices of its women as they await a gathering that will forever change their lives. Spanning the three days, Family Lore traces the lives of the Marte women, weaving together past and present, Santo Domingo and New York City. Told with Elizabeth Acevedo’s inimitable and incandescent voice, this is an indelible portrait of sisters and cousins, aunts and nieces—one family’s journey through their history, helping them better navigate all that is to come.
Publication Date: August 1, 2023
Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Magical Realism
My Name Is Iris by Brando Skyhorse
Brando Skyhorse, the PEN/Hemingway Award–winning author of The Madonnas of Echo Park, returns with a riveting literary dystopian novel set in a near-future America where mandatory identification wristbands make second-generation immigrants into second-class citizens—a powerful family saga for readers of Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West and Rumaan Alam’s Leave the World Behind.
Publication Date: August 1, 2023
Genre: Dystopian, Speculative Fiction
Daughters of Latin America edited by Sandra Guzmán
Spanning time, styles, and traditions, a dazzling collection of essential works from 140 Latine writers, scholars, and activists from across the world—from warrior poet Audre Lorde to novelist Edwidge Danticat and performer and author Elizabeth Acevedo and artist/poet Cecilia Vicuña—gathered in one magnificent volume.
Publication Date: August 15, 2023
Genre: Anthology – Short Stories & Essays
Where There Was Fire by John Manuel Arias
A lush and atmospheric novel about three generations of a Costa Rican family wrestling with a deadly secret. What unfolds is a story of a mother and daughter trying to forgive what they do not yet understand, and the mystery at the heart of one family’s rupture, steeped in machismo, jealousy, labor uprisings, and the havoc wreaked by banana plantations in Central America. Brimming with ancestral spirits, omens, and the anthropomorphic forces of nature, John Manuel Arias weaves a brilliant tapestry of love, loss, secrets, and redemption in Where There was Fire.
Publication Date: August 29, 2023
Genre: Family Saga, Historical Fiction
