There's a Book For That: Hispanic & Latine Heritage Month
Welcome Hispanic & Latine Heritage Month which runs from September 15 through October 15, during which time we honor the contributions of Latine and Hispanic Americans to the United States and celebrate their heritage and culture. Enjoy the following array of new and acclaimed titles – biography, memoir, cooking, fiction, history, and poetry – to mark the occasion.
NONFICTION
Inspired by family lore, a young writer embarks on an epic quest through the Argentine Andes in search of a heritage spanning hemispheres and centuries, from the Jewish Levant to turn-of-the-century trade routes in South America. Combining travelog, history, memoir, and reportage, Stranger in the Desert transports readers from the lonely plains of Patagonia to the breathtaking altiplano of the high Andes; from the old Jewish quarter of Damascus to today’s vibrant neighborhoods of Buenos Aires. It is also a fervent journey of self-discovery as Salama grapples with his own Jewish, Arab, and Latin American identities, interrogating the stories families tell themselves, and to what end.
Longlisted for the National Book Award
Part memoir and part cultural criticism, this brilliant, singular collection of essays explores migration, violence, and colonial erasure through the lens of music and pop culture, and from the perspective of a Mexican American daughter from the Rio Grande Valley. With Magical/Realism, Vanessa recovers the truth from the absences and silences of migration, colonialism, and white supremacy. She looks closely at music as a stand-in for the archive of the undocumented and how pop culture leaves objects behind as portals for memory. This is a wise, tender, expansive collection from a dazzling, essential voice.
In this powerful and deeply felt memoir of translation, storytelling, and borders, Alejandra Oliva, a Mexican American translator and immigrant justice activist, offers a powerful chronical of her experience interpreting at the US-Mexico border. As investigative and analytical as she is meditative and introspective, sharp as she is lyrical, and incisive as she is compassionate, seasoned interpreter Alejandra Oliva argues for a better world while guiding us through the suffering that makes the fight necessary and the joy that makes it worth fighting for.
A CONTEMPORARY CLASSIC, Magical Urbanism focuses on how Latinos are attempting to translate their urban demographic ascendancy into effective social power. Mike Davis chronicles the Dickensian underworld of day labor in New York, tracks the development of new ecologies and levels of development along the border, and examines the shifting realities of life and work for Latinos in US cities. The cosmopolitan result of the Latinization of America’s cities “is a rich, constantly evolving” culture that has the potential, argues Davis, to become a radical new American counterculture.
THE DAY OF THE DEAD: A CELEBRATION OF DEATH AND LIFE by Déborah Holtz, Juan Carlos Mena
A tribute to Mexico’s most important holiday, this extraordinary and definitive volume documents the immense creativity displayed by this popular annual celebration.
FICTION
A 40th anniversary hardcover edition of Sandra Cisneros’s beloved coming-of-age novel about a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago: The House on Mango Street is one of the most cherished novels of the last fifty years. Readers from all walks of life have fallen for the voice of Esperanza Cordero, growing up in Chicago and inventing for herself who and what she will become. “In English my name means hope,” she says. “In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting.”
Moving between New York City, Mexico City, and Iowa City, a young member of the Mexican elite sees his life splinter in a centuries-spanning debut that blends the Latin American traditions of Roberto Bolaño and Fernanda Melchor with the autofiction of US writers like Ben Lerner and Teju Cole.
This powerful and moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea and Violeta weaves together past and present, tracing the ripple effects of war and immigration on one child in Europe in 1938 and another in the United States in 2019. Intertwining past and present, The Wind Knows My Name tells the tale of these two unforgettable characters, both in search of family and home. It is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make, and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers—and never stop dreaming.
Click here for the spanish edition
A year in the life of the unforgettable Catalina Ituralde, a wickedly wry and heartbreakingly vulnerable student at an elite college, forced to navigate an opaque past, an uncertain future, tragedies on two continents, and the tantalizing possibilities of love and freedom. Brash and daring, part campus novel, part hagiography, part pop song, Catalina is unlike any coming-of-age novel you’ve ever read—and Catalina, bright and tragic, circled by a nimbus of chaotic energy, driven by a wild heart, is a character you will never forget.
A diabolical collection of stories featuring achingly human characters whose lives intertwine with ghosts, goblins, and the macabre by “one of Latin America’s most exciting authors” (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) “Horror has found its master.”—Joy Williams
POETRY
A rich, accomplished, intensely intimate collection with two full sections of new poems bookending Blanco’s selections from his five previous volumes.
“An engineer, poet, Cuban American…his poetry bridges cultures and languages—a mosaic of our past, our present, and our future—reflecting a nation that is hectic, colorful, and still becoming.”—President Joe Biden, conferring the National Humanities Medal on Richard Blanco, 2023
This landmark Latinx poetry collection offers “a wondrous journey through the passions, the ideas, and the diversity of a people redefining what it means to be American” (Héctor Tobar, Pulitzer Prize winner). Now, in an unprecedented anthology edited by the poet and critic Rigoberto González, Library of America brings together more than 180 poets whose poems bear witness to the beauty and power of this vital and expanding tradition: its profound engagement with pasts both mythical and historical, its reckoning with the complexities of language, land, and identity, and its vision of a nation enriched by the stories of immigrants, exiles, refugees, and their descendants. Latino Poetry spans the 17th century to today, and presents those poems written in Spanish in the original and in English translation.
COOKING
In Trejo’s Tacos, Trejo not only shares 75 recipes for cantina favorites like succulent carnitas, vegan cauliflower tacos, and pillowy-sweet cinnamon-sugar lowrider donuts, but offers insights into his life and pays respect to his hometown, his roots, and all of the colorful characters who helped him along the way, creating a delicious tribute to L.A. and the city’s vibrant Latino culture.
In this monumental work, culinary expert Sandra A. Gutierrez shares more than three hundred everyday dishes—plus countless variations—that home cooks everywhere will want to replicate. Divided by ingredient—Beans, Corn, Yuca, Quinoa, and almost two dozen more—and featuring an extensive pantry section that establishes the fundamentals of Latin American cooking, Latinísimo brings together real recipes from home cooks in Argentina, Brazil, Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
From the kitchen of a world-renowned chef comes this treasury of authentic Mexican recipes inspired by the painter Frida Kahlo and filled with mouthwatering photography. In engaging texts, Castellano explores Kahlo’s relationship to food, as well as the historic importance of Mexican culinary arts in Kahlo’s work. Fans of Kahlo’s art will gain a deeper understanding of her use of color and her connection to Mexican tradition. Anyone interested in authentic Mexican cooking will be drawn to the flavors and textures of Castellanos’ gorgeously illustrated recipes.
For more on these, and related, titles visit Hispanic & Latine Heritage Month, 2024
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