Spanish Literature

Esmeralda’s family relocates from Puerto Rico to Brooklyn in 1961, when Esmeralda is 13 years old. On the cusp of womanhood, Esmeralda receives warnings from her family members, and especially her mother, Mami, to watch out for the many algos or dangers lurking in the city. Struggling to adjust to city life in Brooklyn, Esmeralda misses Puerto Rico, and she dreams of the day when she will return. Initially put into remedial classes because she... Read Almost a Woman Summary

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And the Earth Did Not Devour Him by Chicano-American author Tomás Rivera was originally published as a Spanish and English bilingual edition in 1971, translated into English by Herminio Ríos. Evangelina Vigil-Piñón’s translation, considered the definitive one, came out in 1988. The book was awarded the Quinto Sol Prize for literature and was adapted into a film. Born in Texas, Rivera,was himself the son of Mexican migrant farm workers, and worked on farms as a... Read And The Earth Did Not Devour Him Summary

Sandra Benitez’s A Place Where the Sea Remembers was originally published in 1993 and won the 1994 Minnesota Book Award. Benitez grew up in Mexico, El Salvador, and Missouri, and she currently lives in Minnesota. Her novel is set in the small seaside town of Santiago, Mexico, and focuses on the lives of the town’s residents. A Place Where the Sea Remembers falls into the genre known as magical realism, a narrative strategy employed by... Read A Place Where the Sea Remembers Summary

A Rip in Heaven: A Memoir of Murder and Its Aftermath (2004) is a true-crime story and memoir by Jeanine Cummins. The book recounts the violent rape and murder of two young women, Julie and Robin Kerry, the author’s cousins, and focuses on the aftermath for their families. Tom Cummins, their cousin who is present during the crimes, is thrown off a bridge into the Mississippi River with the two women but survives. Innocent, he... Read A Rip in Heaven Summary

Dominican Friar Bartolomé de Las Casas’s A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies is a primary source on the genocide of indigenous peoples during Spanish colonization of the Americas. This account of Las Casas, who spent much of his life in the New World, specifically spans the years 1509-1542, with some reference to the years between 1542 and 1552, when the book was published. The text mostly details events that occurred in present-day... Read A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies Summary

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The autobiography of Cuban novelist and poet Reinaldo Arenas, Before Night Falls, details his life as a gay man under Fidel Castro’s regime and the consequences of his dissidence. It was published posthumously in 1993. Immediately named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, it has since been adapted into a movie and, later, an opera. Before Night Falls tells the story of Arenas’s life growing up in a... Read Before Night Falls Summary

When Julia Alvarez’s Before We Were Free (2002) begins, the life of Anita de la Torre, an 11-year-old girl in the Dominican Republic, is about to change forever. The novel investigates themes of family, government corruption, superstition, and the power of the written word, all set against the backdrop of the months before and after the assassination of a brutal dictator, Rafael Trujillo. This study guide uses the 2007 Laurel Leaf Reprint Edition.Plot SummaryDuring the... Read Before We Were Free Summary

Blood Wedding, a Spanish rural tragedy, was written by Federico Garcia Lorca in 1932 while he was director of the travelling theater company Teatro Universitario La Barraca. The play was first performed at Teatro Beatriz in Madrid in 1933 under the title Bodas de Sangre. It ran briefly in America on Broadway in 1935, where it was retitled Bitter Oleander. It was not well received; the passions and folkloric culture in the play were too... Read Blood Wedding Summary

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Breaking Through, an autobiography by Francisco Jimenez, is a work of juvenile literature that was published in 2001. The book records the childhood experiences of the author as he struggles to become familiar with American culture, and has been awarded a number of prizes, including The Americas Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature and the Pura Belpre Honor Award.The story commences with a description of the then 4-year-old author, his parents, and his older... Read Breaking Through Summary

The first iteration of the novel La Celestina, published anonymously as Comedia de Calisto y Melibea (Comedy of Calisto and Melibea), first appeared in Spain in 1499. In 1500, a law student named Fernando de Rojas revealed himself as the author in a new edition of the text (under the title Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea, or Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea), explaining in a prologue that he had discovered the first act already written... Read Celestina Summary

Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a 1981 novella by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez. Told in non-chronological order and in journalistic fashion by an unnamed narrator, it pieces together the events leading up to and after the murder of Santiago Nasar by Pedro and Pablo Vicario. Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a classic example of Márquez's use of magical realism in his writing. The novella has been adapted several times as a film... Read Chronicle of a Death Foretold Summary

The Chronicle of the Narváez Expedition by Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was originally written in 1542, with a reprint in 1555. The chronicle follows Cabeza de Vaca’s memories of his survival after the expedition (led by Pánfilo de Narváez) failed and broke apart, and his subsequent peregrinations through the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. His chronicle stands as an important primary document of the age of the conquistadores. Of particular importance are Cabeza... Read Chronicle of the Narvaez Expedition Summary

Isabel Allende’s novel City of the Beasts tells the story of Alex Cold, a fifteen-year-old boy from California who accompanies his journalist grandmother on a life-altering journey through the Amazon.  The narrative opens with Alex at home in California, angry and frightened over the illness of his mother, who is undergoing cancer treatment. When his mother gets a chance at receiving a promising new treatment in Texas, Alex’s parents send him to stay with his paternal grandmother, the adventurer... Read City of the Beasts Summary

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Daughter of Fortune, first published in Spanish in 1998 (Hija de la fortuna), is the fifth novel by celebrated Latin American writer Isabel Allende. The winner of multiple awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Chile’s National Literature Prize, Allende created this work of historical fiction, in part, to explore the impact of feminism on her own life. Daughter of Fortune tells the story of a young woman, Eliza Sommers, and her odyssey of... Read Daughter Of Fortune Summary

José Zorrilla y Moral (1817-1893), was a poet, dramatist, and major figure of the nationalist wing of the Spanish Romantic movement. He was born in Valladolid, Spain and educated at the Real Seminario de Nobles, a Jesuit school, and later at the universities of Toledo and Valladolid. Though Zorrilla’s father hoped his son would become a lawyer, Zorrilla left his studies and went to Madrid to pursue a career as a poet. In 1837, he... Read Don Juan Tenorio Summary

Don Quixote is a novel in two parts by Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes published between 1605 and 1615. The novel portrays the life of a middle-aged Spanish man who decides to become a knight, just like the characters in the works of fiction he loves. Considered to be a foundational work of Western literature and one of the first modern novels, Don Quixote is one of the most translated books of all time. It... Read Don Quixote Summary

First published in Spanish in 1987, Eva Luna is a novel written by celebrated Chilean writer Isabel Allende and later translated into English by Margaret Sayers Peden the following year. The story is set in an unnamed South American country believed to be an amalgamation of Chile and Venezuela. The eponymous Eva Luna narrates the epic story of her life against a backdrop inspired by the sociopolitical changes in South America from the mid-1940s to... Read Eva Luna Summary

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For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) is a novel by the Modernist American author Ernest Hemingway. The novel tells the story of Robert Jordan, an American volunteer working as a demolition specialist for the Republican army during the Spanish Civil War. Robert, sent to blow up a bridge to aid a Republican offensive, enlists the aid of a band of guerrilla fighters in the mountains. Robert falls in love with a woman in their care... Read For Whom the Bell Tolls Summary

Fuenteovejuna (or Fuente Ovejuna) by Lope de Vega, first published in 1619, takes place and is based on true events that occurred in Spain in 1476. The play opens in Amalgro, where Commander Don Fernán Gómez de Guzmán is meeting with Grand Master Don Rodrigo Téllez Girón to push him to back King Alfonso, rather than Ferdinand and Isabella, in the battle for Spain and take Ciudad Real. Guzmánpledges his soldiers and tells Girón that... Read Fuenteovejuna Summary

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Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits is a work of fiction written by Moroccan native Laila Lalami and published in 2005. The narrative is comprised of nine stories involving the lives of four major characters, all of whom attempt to emigrate illegally from Morocco to Spain in order to have better lives. Despite the fact that these stories are separate from one another, the book does not represent a short story collection in the classic sense;... Read Hope And Other Dangerous Pursuits Summary

Elizabeth Borton de Treviño’s I, Juan de Pareja is a young adult historical fiction novel published in 1965. Its complicated portrayal of slavery, art, and self-expression earned it the Newbery Medal in 1966. In 1656, Spanish Golden Age painter Diego Velázquez unveiled his newest portrait: a simple study of one of his enslaved workers entitled Portrait of Juan de Pareja. Upon viewing the painting, de Treviño was inspired to imagine the story of this man... Read I, Juan de Pareja Summary

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“In Praise of Darkness” is a poem, and book, by Jorge Luis Borges. It was originally published in Spanish in 1969, late in Borges’s career—his first book of poetry, Fervor de Buenos Aires, was published in 1923. “In Praise of Darkness,” a free verse poem about Aging and Blindness, The Presence of the Past, and the speaker’s Relationship to Literature, also lists some of Borges’s literary influences, including 19th-century American Transcendentalist writer Ralph Waldo Emerson... Read In Praise of Darkness Summary

Isabel Allende’s In the Midst of Winter is a novel published in 2017 that follows the alternating perspectives of three immigrants whose lives become intertwined after a car accident during a snowstorm in New York City. This study guide refers to the Kindle edition of the novel.Plot OverviewOne night, during a brutal snowstorm in New York City, Richard Bowmaster is driving home when he accidentally crashes into Evelyn Ortega’s car. While he assumes it is... Read In the Midst of Winter Summary

The novel is set in the Dominican Republic, in both 1994—the “present day”—and during the period of Trujillo’s regime. In 1994, Dedé Mirabal lives in the house where her three sisters—Minerva, Patria and María Teresa—and her family used to live. Her dead sisters are known as the “butterflies,” they are martyrs and national heroes. In 1994, Dedé talks to an interviewer about her sisters’ lives and deaths. Her narrative is interspersed with her own memories... Read In the Time of the Butterflies Summary

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In Manuel Puig’s novel Kiss of the Spider Woman, Luis Alberto Molina, a hairdresser, and Valentin Arregui Paz, a Marxist revolutionary, are roommates in a Buenos Aires prison from September to October of 1975. Without the use of a narrative voice, Puig uses dialogue, prison reports, and stream-of-consciousness to tell the story. The majority of the novel is written in dialogue.Molina, serving eight years for the “corruption of minors” is animated and sociable, unlike Valentin... Read Kiss of the Spider Woman Summary

The House of Bernarda Alba: a drama about women in the villages of Spain, or La casa de Bernarda Alba, is a play by Spanish poet, dramatist, and director, Federico García Lorca, that explores themes of sexual repression, inheritance, and violence among three generations of women in rural Spain. The play was Lorca’s last, completed in 1936 only months before his murder at the hands of right-wing nationalist forces at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil... Read La Casa De Bernarda Alba Summary

La vida es sueño, or, Life’s a Dream, by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, is one of Spain’s most well-known plays. First published and first produced in 1636, during the heyday of Spain’s golden age of literature, Life is a Dream is a play in verse that intertwines a complex family drama with a tale of honor and vengeance. The play begins with a dramatic moment, as Rossaura and her servant, Bugle, happen upon a roughly-built... Read Life Is a Dream Summary

Like Water for Chocolate is the debut novel of Laura Esquivel, published in Mexico in 1989 and then translated into English by Carol and Thomas Christensen. Esquivel has sold over four million copies of the novel worldwide. She is a novelist and active politician serving in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies. She collaborated with her husband at the time to adapt the novel into a film in 1992, which was then nominated for a Golden... Read Like Water for Chocolate Summary

Love in the Time of Cholera is a classic work of literary fiction by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez. It was published in Spanish in 1985 and translated into English in 1988 by Edith Grossman. The novel was adapted into a film in 2007, which was nominated for several awards including an Oscar and a Golden Globe. Plot SummaryLove in the Time of Cholera is set in... Read Love in the Time of Cholera Summary

Teodoro Golfín, a renowned eye surgeon, has just arrived at the fictional town of Villamojada in Northern Spain in search of the mines of Socrates. At the request of the wealthy Francisco Penáguilas, Teodoro has come to attempt to cure his son, Pablo, of his blindness. On his way to the mines, Teodoro gets lost. He is aided by the arrival of Pablo, who offers to lead Teodoro to the mines where the doctor can... Read Marianela Summary

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Carmen Laforet’s first novel, Nada, tells the coming-of-age story of Andrea, an orphan who moves from a convent in provincial Spain to the city of Barcelona. Published to widespread acclaim in 1945 when Laforet was just 23, the novel won the Premio Nadal literary prize. Known for its artful portrayal of the poverty, class stratification, and domestic struggles many families faced after the Spanish Civil War, Nada paints a realistic portrait of life under Francisco... Read Nada Summary

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Set in the seaport city of Santa María de Antigua, in colonial Spanish Colombia, at the end of the 18th century, Gabriel García Márquez'snovel Of Love and Other Demons tells the tragic story of Sierva María de Todos Los Ángeles. The only daughter of the American-born Marquis de Casalduero, Sierva lives with her father the Marquis, and her mother, Bernarda, in a decaying mansion.Neither parent takes an interest in their daughter, so she's raised by... Read Of Love And Other Demons Summary

One Hundred Years of Solitude, first published in Spanish in 1967 as Cien años de soledad, is an internationally renowned and classic work of literature by Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez. The most highly regarded English version of the book is Gregory Rabassa’s translation, which was first published in 1970. This guide uses citations from the HarperPerennial Modern Classics Edition, which was released in 2006. García Márquez became the fourth Latin American winner of the... Read One Hundred Years of Solitude Summary

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Open Veins of Latin America (1997) by Uruguayan journalist, writer, and poet Eduardo Galeano is a historical nonfiction book about the political and economic development of Latin America. The book celebrated its 25th year anniversary in 1997 by issuing a new edition; it features additional writing from Galeano reflecting on the book and the state of Latin American politics seven years after the book’s first release. This study guide refers to the 25th year anniversary... Read Open Veins of Latin America Summary

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Pedro Paramo is a 1955 novel by Mexican author Juan Rulfo. In the novel, Juan Preciado returns to his mother’s hometown after her death to seek out his father. Rather than his father, he discovers a town populated by ghosts and traumatic memories. Pedro Paramo has been hailed as one of the most important novels of the 20th century and a vital foundation stone in the genre of magical realism. This guide uses the 2014... Read Pedro Paramo Summary

Phaedra is one of the 10 surviving Roman tragedies attributed to Lucius Annaeus Seneca. It was probably composed in the first half of the first century CE, during the time when the Julio-Claudian Dynasty was in power in Rome. Considered one of Seneca’s most influential plays, Phaedra tells the story of Phaedra’s disastrous and unrequited passion for her stepson Hippolytus, loosely drawing on Euripides’s much earlier Greek tragedy, Hippolytus. The play explores themes such as... Read Phaedra Summary

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Pocho is a 1959 novel by José Antonio Villarreal. Often considered the first Chicano novel, it was a critical success and an important landmark in American literature. This guide refers to the 1989 Anchor Books edition.Plot SummaryPocho is a bildungsroman, telling the coming-of-age story of young Richard Rubio. However, the story starts before his birth with the tale of how his father, Juan Manuel Rubio, first came to America. A soldier who fought alongside Pancho... Read Pocho Summary

The Popol Vuh is a cultural narrative of the Quiché people that blends folklore, mythology, and historical accounts. The contents of the Popol Vuh have been relayed through oral tradition for many years, and its written form has suffered many losses following Spanish colonization of Latin America. Spanish colonizers destroyed nearly all Quiché texts and codices, including the Popol Vuh. Thus, the earliest known version of the Popol Vuh that exists is a Spanish translation... Read Popol Vuh Summary

In 2008, Francisco Jiménez published Reaching Out, the third in his series of autobiographical memoirs for young adults. The first two books in the series chart Jiménez’s childhood and teenage years as the son of Mexican immigrants in southern California. Reaching Out starts in 1962 as Francisco (known as Frank) travels with his family to the campus of Santa Clara University to begin college. Attending university is a hard-won blessing for Frank, the fruit of... Read Reaching Out Summary

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Signs Preceding the End of the World is a 2009 novel by Mexican author Yuri Herrera. The novel examines personal and geopolitical issues concerning the United States-Mexico border, although it does not mention these nations by name, referring instead to North and South. Herrera is a writer, professor, and political scientist, currently teaching at the University of New Orleans. Herrera’s first novel, Kingdom Cons, won the Premio Binacional de Novela Joven Frontera de Palabras (Border... Read Signs Preceding the End of the World Summary

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The Angel's Game is a 2008 supernatural mystery novel by the Spanish author Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Set in Barcelona in the 1920s and 1930s, the book chronicles a young crime novelist's efforts to unravel an occult conspiracy amid the political turmoil of pre-Francoist Spain. It is the second entry in Zafón's Cemetery of Forgotten Books series and a prequel to 2001's Shadow of the Wind, but The Angel's Game is designed to be read as... Read The Angel's Game Summary

The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel García Márquez debuted in Spain in 1975. The English translation published in 1976. Márquez’s most notable work, One Hundred Years of Solitude, earned him a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982 and reflects his distinct magical realist style, an artistic genre first recognized in literature in predominantly Latin American writing during the 1940s. The Autumn of the Patriarch, published seven years later, also features Márquez’s magical style and... Read The Autumn of the Patriarch Summary

“The Book of Sand” by Jorge Luis Borges is a short story dealing with humankind’s inability to grasp the infinite, whether in spirituality or in physical reality. Borges is one of the most well-known Latin American authors, as well as one of the most notable postmodernists of the 20th century. Like much of Borges’s work, “The Book of Sand” contains themes and motifs of the infinite, the nature of literature, spirituality, and postcolonial thought. “The... Read The Book of Sand Summary

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Jorge Luís Borges’s short story “The Circular Ruins” was originally written in 1939 and was first published under the title “Las ruinas circulares” in the Argentinian literary journal Sur in 1940. By the time “The Circular Ruins” was finally translated into English for American audiences in 1962, Borges was on his way to international renown. In 1961, he was awarded the Prix Formentor (an elite international award), and he traveled to the US to become... Read The Circular Ruins Summary

Published in 2001 by HarperCollins, The Color of My Words is a children’s novel written by lawyer and author, Lynn Joseph. The novel follows an adolescent protagonist, Ana Rosa, as she observes the world around her and eventually discovers the power of her own voice through writing. The Color of My Words received significant critical recognition, and the International Reading Association and the American Library Association named it a notable book. This study guide refers... Read The Color of My Words Summary

The Feast of the Goat, written by Peruvian Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, is a work of historical fiction originally published in Spanish in 2000 and translated into English by Edith Grossman in 2001. The novel chronicles the final days of Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship over the Dominican Republic from three points of view: through the eyes of his assassins in 1961, from the time they wait to ambush him until their final moments; through Trujillo’s... Read The Feast of the Goat Summary

The Fountains of Silence: A Novel was published in 2019 by Ruta Sepetys, the daughter of a Lithuanian refugee. Though she primarily writes for young adults, her historical fiction is popular with readers of all ages. This study guide refers to the Philomel Books edition published by Penguin Random House in 2019.The Fountains of Silence is about silence and memory—in this case, the memory of trauma. The first and longest part of the novel, set... Read The Fountains of Silence Summary

In his short story “The Garden of Forking Paths,” Jorge Luis Borges uses the metaphor of the labyrinth to suggest the presence of infinite possible realities. First published in 1941 under the Spanish title “El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan,” the story reflects new modes of thought and expression, ranging from developments in quantum mechanics to the advent of detective thrillers. A spy mystery, a philosophical puzzle, and a mythic history all in one... Read The Garden of Forking Paths Summary

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The House of the Spirits (1982) is Chilean writer Isabel Allende’s debut novel. The family saga follows the journey of the Trueba family across three generations. Set in an unnamed Latin American country (widely believed to be Chile), the family’s journey is interwoven with the sociopolitical history of their nation and the events that unfold over the span of half a century.Isabel Allende is one of the world’s most widely read Spanish-language authors. First published... Read The House of the Spirits Summary

The Invention of Morel (La invención de Morel) is a 1940 novella by Argentinian writer Adolfo Bioy Casares. A literary thought experiment in the manner of Bioy Casares’s close friend, Jorge Luis Borges, The Invention of Morel imagines an island on which a group of wealthy socialites unknowingly relive a single weeklong holiday over and over again. They are observed by the novella’s narrator, a political criminal who has come to the island to hide from the Venezuelan... Read The Invention of Morel Summary

The Kingdom of This World, written by Alejo Carpentier and originally published in 1949, traces events in 20th-century Haiti, beginning in the French colonial period and spanning the lifetime of protagonist Ti Noël. This novella is a work of dark magical realism and tells the story of two attempted rebellions against the French, the eventual reign of King Henri Christophe, the nation’s first Black king, and his downfall. Through Ti Noël’s perspective, the novella shows... Read The Kingdom Of This World Summary

The Labyrinth of Solitude is a nine-part philosophical and historical essay on Mexican identity and culture. Octavio Paz, a famous Mexican poet and career diplomat, began writing The Labyrinth of Solitude during his time as the Mexican ambassador to France in the late 1940s. Originally published in 1951, the first edition of Paz’s work appeared in Spanish under the title El labertino de la soledad, and it is widely considered to be Paz’s masterpiece. This... Read The Labyrinth of Solitude Summary

“The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges is a short story that explores the search for meaning in life, the concept of the infinite, the power of knowledge, and the difference between the human and the divine. Borges is generally categorized as a Postmodern, metafictional, and experimental writer who played with the concept of narrative structure to critique the construction of reality. This work is firmly situated within the speculative fiction genre, weaving together... Read The Library of Babel Summary

The Lost Steps, first published in 1953 by Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier, is a parody of the lost world novels that were popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries, including Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) and Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (1912). The novel follows an unnamed New York City composer on a quest for Indigenous musical instruments in South America. Carpentier, known for his roles as a... Read The Lost Steps Summary

The Moor’s Account (2014) is a fictionalized memoir of the first African explorer in the new world. Very little is known about him beyond the fact that he was one of only four survivors of the ill-fated Narváez expedition. In this historical novel, which cleverly employs flashbacks and first-person narration, author Laila Lalami imagines Mustafa telling his own story of endurance and survival.Mustafa was born in North Africa in the early 16th century. Despite his... Read The Moor's Account Summary

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The Old Man Who Read Love Stories, an ecological novel by Chilean writer Luis Sepúlveda, first published in Spain in 1989. Peter Bush’s English translation published in America in 1993. This story is a parable about the encroachment and ecological consequences of non-native humans, especially hunters, gold prospectors, and politicians, on the Ecuadoran rainforest. The novel won Spain’s Tigre Juan Prize. Sepúlveda has written 16 books and four screenplays, directing two of them for the... Read The Old Man Who Read Love Stories Summary

The Only Road (2016) is Alexandra Diaz’s second novel. Diaz is the daughter of Cuban immigrants, and this book focuses on the experience of migration. The novel, written primarily for young adults, follows cousins Jaime and Ángela, who are forced to flee their small Guatemalan village after the local gang kills Ángela’s brother. Faced with either joining the gang responsible for his death or taking the uncertain 4,000-kilometer journey north, Jaime and Ángela reluctantly leave... Read The Only Road Summary

Structured as a mystery wrapped within a story within a story, The Shadow of the Wind by the Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafón and translated  into English by Lucia Graves, explores themes of love and the importance of storytelling in keeping alive memories of the dead. Part mystery, part potboiler, part romance, and part gothic horror story, the novel mingles realism and magical realism elements into a dramatic plot, while also delineating a large cast... Read The Shadow of the Wind Summary

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The Stories of Eva Luna is a collection of short fiction by best-selling Chilean author Isabel Allende. The collection—first published in Spanish in 1989 and in English in 1991—is a follow-up to Allende’s 1987 novel, Eva Luna. Eva is the narrator of the stories in the collection, which is structured as a frame story with the Prologue harkening back to Eva Luna. Isabel Allende is famed for her work in the genre of magical realism... Read The Stories of Eva Luna Summary

Published in 1926, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises is a modernist novel regarded as a masterful portrait of the Lost Generation. It is a roman à clef, structured in three acts, that depicts characters based upon Hemingway’s friends and associates. Upon initial publication, it received mixed reviews, but is now considered a classic of 20th-century literature. In 1957, it was adapted into a film starring Ava Gardner (though Hemingway, reportedly, did not like the... Read The Sun Also Rises Summary

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The memoir When I Was Puerto Rican recounts author Esmeralda Santiago’s early years. It is the first of her three memoirs chronicling her childhood in Puerto Rico to her eventual residence in the United States. It is a coming of age story, but mines richer material than that. Questions of identity—national identity, hereditary identity, familial identity, female identity, spiritual identity, and semantic labels—underpin the stories Santiago tells.The book begins in Puerto Rico, when Esmeralda is... Read When I Was Puerto Rican Summary

In the juvenile fiction novel Wrecked, Maria Padian portrays a timely narrative about sexual assault on college campuses. Her careful treatment of this subject earned the text several awards, including the Fall 2016 Kids’ Indie Next Pick, the Maine Lupine Honor Award, and the Maine Literary Award. Originally published in hardcover in 2017 by Algonquin Young Readers, Wrecked also received positive recognition from Booklist, Book Riot, Kirkus Reviews, and the School Library Journal, among others.Plot... Read Wrecked Summary

Zorro, first published in 2005, is a historical fiction novel by the Chilean writer Isabel Allende. Taking the form of a biography or bildungsroman, Zorro is the first work to chronicle the origins of Zorro, a fictional character created by American pulp writer Johnston McCulley in 1919.Set against the backdrop of Spanish colonialism at the turn of the 19th century, the novel details the events that led the protagonist, Diego de la Vega, to become... Read Zorro Summary