Looking for a way to celebrate Latinx/Hispanic Heritage Month? FSU Libraries have you covered! We’ve compiled a list of novels written by Latinx authors for your enjoyment. With both physical and online options, you can dive into this selection any place, any time!
The House of Spirits
Author: Isabel Allende
Description: In The House of Spirits, Isabel Allende weaves a luminous tapestry of three generations of the Trueba family, revealing both triumphs and tragedies. Here is patriarch Esteban, whose wild desires and political machinations are tempered only by his love for his ethereal wife, Clara, a woman touched by an otherworldly hand. Their daughter, Blanca, whose forbidden love for a man Esteban has deemed unworthy infuriates her father, yet will produce his greatest joy: his granddaughter Alba, a beautiful, ambitious girl who will lead the family and their country into a revolutionary future.
Where to Find: Physical copies are available at Strozier library (in English and Spanish). Click here to request library materials.
In the Time of the Butterflies
Author: Julia Alvarez
Description: It is November 25, 1960, and three beautiful sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The official state newspaper reports their deaths as accidental. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of Gen. Rafael Leónidas Trujillo’s dictatorship. It doesn’t have to. Everybody knows of Las Mariposas–the Butterflies.
Where to Find: This book is available online, visit lib.fsu.edu and select the books tab on the homepage to search. Physical copies are also available at Strozier library. Click here to request library materials.
Velvet Was the Night
Author: Jane Murphy
Description: In the 1970s, Mexico City, Maite is a secretary who lives for one thing: the latest issue of Secret Romance. While student protests and political unrest consume the city, Maite escapes into stories of passion and danger.
Where to Find: This book is available online, visit lib.fsu.edu and select the books tab on the homepage to search.
A Nation of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out: Mi Opinion Sobre Las Libertades, Derechos y Deberes de La Mujer
Author: Luisa Capetillo
Description: Luisa Capetillo is best known in popular culture as the first woman to wear men’s trousers. The splash of recognition following her arrest and acquittal for her choice of clothing in 1915 overshadows her significant contributions to the women’s movement and the anarchist labor movements, both in her native Puerto Rico and in the migrant labor belt that stretched along the Eastern United States, from Tampa to New York. This volume combines a facsimile of the original Spanish edition with the first English translation of Capetillo’s landmark MI OPINION SOBRE LAS LIBERTADES, DERECHOS Y DEBERES DE LA MUJER, originally published in Spanish in 1911. MI OPINION is considered by many to be the first feminist treatise in Puerto Rico and one of the first in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Where to Find: This book is available online, visit lib.fsu.edu and select the books tab on the homepage to search. Physical copies are also available at Strozier library. Click here to request library materials.
A Long Petal of The Sea
Author: Isabel Allende
Description: In the late 1930s, civil war grips Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage neither of them desires.
Where to Find: Physical copies are available at Strozier library. Click here to request library materials.
Thirty Talks Weird Love
Author: Alessandra Narváez Varela
Description: Out of nowhere, a lady comes up to Anamaría and says she’s her, from the future. But Anamaría’s thirteen, she knows better than to talk to some weirdo stranger. Girls need to be careful, especially in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico—it’s the 90’s and fear is overtaking her beloved city as cases of kidnapped girls and women become alarmingly common. This thirty-year-old “future” lady doesn’t seem to be dangerous but she won’t stop bothering her, switching between cheesy Hallmark advice about being kind to yourself, and some mysterious talk about saving a girl.
Where to Find: This book is available online, visit lib.fsu.edu and select the books tab on the homepage to search.
The House of Broken Angels
Author: Luis Alberto Urrea
Description: In this “raucous, moving, and necessary” story by a Pulitzer Prize finalist (San Francisco Chronicle), the De La Cruzes, a family on the Mexican-American border, celebrate two of their most beloved relatives during a joyous and bittersweet weekend.
Where to Find: Physical copies are available at Strozier library. Click here to request library materials.
Fruit of The Drunken Tree
Author: Ingrid Rojas Contreras
Description: Set in 1990s Colombia, Fruit of the Drunken Tree examines the terror inflicted on the South American country by Pablo Escobar from an oft-unexplored perspective—two young girls coming-of-age.
Where to Find: This book is available online, visit lib.fsu.edu and select the books tab on the homepage to search.
Lost Children Archive
Author: Valeria Luiselli
Description: A family road trip across America clashes with an immigration crisis in the Southwest. Their final destination, as they set off from New York, is Apacheria, where the Apaches once called home. As the family travels West, the novel compels readers to consider themes of justice and equality in modern times.
Where to Find: Physical copies are available at Strozier library. Click here to request library materials.
The Wind That Lays Waste
Author: Selva Almada
Description: A storm is brewing in rural Argentina, and, as if by an act of God, a preacher and his restless daughter run into car trouble. They take refuge in the home of an aging and mildly apathetic mechanic and an idealistic young boy, and as the storm comes to pass, proximity forces everyone to unpack their beliefs.
Where to Find: This book is available online, visit lib.fsu.edu and select the books tab on the homepage to search.
Afterlife
Author: Julia Alvarez
Description: Antonia Vega, the immigrant writer at the center of Afterlife, has had the rug pulled out from under her. She has just retired from the college where she taught English when her beloved husband, Sam, suddenly dies. And then more jolts: her bighearted but unstable sister disappears, and Antonia returns home one evening to find a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep. Antonia has always sought direction in the literature she loves—lines from her favorite authors play in her head like a soundtrack—but now she finds that the world demands more of her than words.
Where to Find: This book is available online, visit lib.fsu.edu and select the books tab on the homepage to search.
When I Was Puerto Rican: A Memoir
Author: Esmeralda Santiago
Description: A young woman’s journey from the mango groves and barrios of Puerto Rico to Brooklyn, and eventually on to Harvard
Where to Find: This book is available online, visit lib.fsu.edu and select the books tab on the homepage to search. Physical copies are also available at Strozier library. Click here to request library materials.
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
Author: Erika Sanchez
Description:The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian meets Jane the Virgin in this poignant but often laugh-out-loud funny contemporary YA about losing a sister and finding yourself amid the pressures, expectations, and stereotypes of growing up in a Mexican-American home.
Where to Find:Physical copies are available at Strozier library. Click here to request library materials.
Cemetery Boys
Author: Aiden Thomas
Description: When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free.
Where to Find: Physical copies are available at Strozier library. Click here to request library materials.
Querido Diego, te abraza Quiela
Autor: Elena Poniatowska
Descripción: Octubre de 1921. Angelina Beloff, pintora rusa exiliada en París, envía una carta tras otra a su amado Diego Rivera, su compañero desde hace diez años, que la ha dejado abandonada y se ha marchado a México sin ella. Angelina, a quien Diego se dirige con el diminutivo de Quiela, fue la primera esposa del muralista mexicano y una excelente pintora, eclipsada por el genio de su marido. Su relación, marcada por la pobreza y por la tiranía de Rivera, fue tormentosa, y la adoración de Quiela, incondicional. Brutal, ególatra, irresistible, Rivera se nos dibuja como un monstruo que hace su voluntad en el arte y el amor. «Ella me dio todo lo que una mujer puede dar a un hombre», diría Rivera. «En cambio, recibió de mí todo el dolor en el corazón y la miseria que un hombre puede causarle a una mujer.»
Dónde encontrar: Las copias físicas están disponibles en la biblioteca Strozier. Haga clic aquí para solicitar materiales de la biblioteca.
Como agua para chocolate
Autor: Laura Esquivel
Descripción: Tita de la Garza, la menor de sus hermanas, está obligada a quedarse en casa sin poderse casar porque tiene que cuidar a su madre. Obligada a rechazar a su pretendiente, expresa su rebeldía en la cocina.Laura Esquivel conquistó al mundo literario hace veinticinco años a través de esta alegoría que vincula con arte los sentimientos y la gastronomía.
Dónde encontrar: Las copias físicas están disponibles en la biblioteca Strozier. Haga clic aquí para solicitar materiales de la biblioteca.
Folktales of The Amazon
Author: Juan Carlos Galeano
Description: The Amazon River basin, known for its lush fertility and varied flora and fauna, has also nourished a rich and diverse folklore tradition. Here are forty-one tales gathered from Amazonian fishermen, hunters, lodgers, small plot farm gardeners, and villagers in Venezuela, Guyana, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador. Organized thematically, these tales convey messages of kinship bonds and reciprocity, capturing the socialized relationships between peoples, animals, plants, places, and a variety of shape-shifting supernatural entities. Often shocking or hair-raising, some of these tales even range into forbidden topics, such as cannibalism and psychotropic plants. Illustrations, historical background, a map, glossary, and story notes enhance this collection.
Where to Find: Physical copies are available at Strozier library (in English and Spanish). Click here to request library materials.
90 Miles
Author: Virgil Suarez
Description: Ninety miles separate Cuba and Key West, Florida. Crossing that distance, thousands of Cubans have lost their lives. For Cuban American poet Virgil Suárez, that expanse of ocean represents the state of exile, which he has imaginatively bridged in over two decades of compelling poetry.
Where to Find: Physical copies are available at Strozier library. Click here to request library materials.
Raining Backwards
Author: Roberto Fernandez
Description: Raining Backwards is an entertaining satire of the Cuban community in Miami, filled with hilarious scenes and characters, including a lovesick girl determined to be a cheerleader for the Miami Dolphins, a poor Cuban American who becomes Pope, another Cuban American who begins a guerrilla war to separate Florida from the Union and a ditsy plantain-chip magnate.
Where to Find: Physical copies are available at Strozier library. Click here to request library materials.
