One Day of Life by Manlio Argueta
One Day of Life has been translated into over 12 languages and was fifth on the list of the 100 best Latin American Novels of the 20th Century, a ranking that was developed by Modern Library. The story takes the reader through one day in the life of Lupe, a grandmother in a small village in El Salvador. It is through her eyes that a picture of the brutality with which the Salvadoran army treated the peasant class, punishing them for trumped up infractions. She states simply almost casually: “From time to time they come to see how we are behaving, who has to be taken away, who has to be beaten to be taught a lesson.” It is a harrowing account of civil war in a poor country and the effects it has on the peasant population.
Argueta was forced into exile by his government as a result of this book, the publication and distribution of which was forbidden in El Salvador. He had to publish his work from Argentina after fleeing to Costa Rica. Manlio Argueta was born in Salvador in 1935 and was a member of the ”Generacion Comprometida,” a group of writers dedicated to social, cultural and political activism. Argueta began his writing career as a poet but after reading a story by J.D. Salinger he tried his hand at fiction. His fiction deals with El Salvador’s social and political instability and repression of the peasant class. He was further influenced by John Dos Passos and Vargas Llosa.
Read-Alikes
Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez
Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
Peggy McCarthy, Smithtown Library
Peel My Love Like an Onion by Ana Castillo
Peel My Love Like An Onion is the story of Carmen, an aging flamenco dancer, who is torn between two lovers, who is experiencing a relapse of a childhood polio affliction, and who is struggling to reconcile her Mexican heritage with her American identity. Passion is a key element throughout this novel, and the author’s poetic writing style successfully maintains a level of appealing sensuality throughout this very readable work. The insertion of Mexican phrases and concepts accentuates the Hispanic feel of this book, while Carmen’s character is depicted through situations and relationships with family and friends. Each facet of Carmen’s life is described and recounted and explored until the reader peels away the many layers of her very identity.
A seductive love story that unfurls in a reflective and thought-provoking narrative, Peel My Love Like An Onion would appeal to anyone who enjoys reading about the complexities of love and loyalty. Told through the eyes of an exceptionally talented woman with a disability, this is a story about the struggle to reconcile one’s past, one’s present, and one’s self.
Try some of Ana Castillo’s other works (So Far From God or The Mixquiahuala Letters) if you enjoy this novel. And if you like love stories written by Hispanic women writers, try reading Blue Moon by Dalia Vargas, Conquest by Lara Rios, or Love’s Song by Ivette Gonzalez.
Deborah Formosa, Northport-East Northport Public Library
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
On his way to town to sell wool to a merchant, a young shepherd named Santiago consults a gypsy about his reoccurring dream. When the gypsy tells him he must travel to the Great Pyramids of Egypt where he will find treasure, Santiago thinks the gypsy is telling him a tale. However, while sitting in the town square, Santiago meets an old man claiming to be a king who also tells him to journey to Egypt where he will find treasure and fulfill his Personal Legend. Even though he is only a shepherd and has never left Southern Spain, Santiago decides to believe in the omens the king speaks about and sell his sheep in order to raise the money he needs to set sail for Africa to begin his journey. Coelho writes of omens and fate, of knowing the language of the world and finding the path that is set out before everyone if only one’s eyes and heart are open. This book is good for those readers who enjoy spirituality and look for deeper meanings in the novels they read and the world in general.
Read-Alikes:
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
The Prohpet by Kahlil Gibran
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
Azurée Agnello, West Babylon Public Library
Bloody Shame by Carolina Garcia-Aguilera
Private investigator Lupe Solano is hired by defense attorney Tommy McDonald to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of a Cuban rafter shot in self-defense by the wealthy owner of a jewelry store. As Lupe’s investigation progresses, she discovers all the people she has interviewed have been lying. Everyone seems to be hiding secrets that no one wants revealed. In addition, her best friend, Margarita Vidal, seems to have some valuable info on the case. On her way to reveal this info to Lupe, she is killed in a car accident. Lupe has much to investigate.
Read-Alikes:
Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series
Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone series
Rosalie Toja, Brentwood Public Library
Desert Blood: The Juarez Murders by Alicia Gaspar De Alba
Desert Blood is a fictional tale set in the all too real world of Mexico. There have been over 400 abductions in Ciudad Juárez in the last two decades. Like the women of De Alba's story, these women are young and of poorer backgrounds, many of them factory workers.
Desert Blood begins with Ivon Villa's trek to Mexico to adopt a baby. The baby and its 15-year old mother turn up mysteriously murdered, thus beginning Ivon's investigation into the Juárez Murders. Ivon's investigation intensifies when her younger sister, Irene, disappears after attending a street fair in Juárez. As Ivon's investigation progresses, she analyzes the motive behind these murders murders which are not solved int he end by any certain means. Are these murders politically motivated? Are they a protest to the increased female population in the workforce? Are they about domination or hate towards women? Although Ivon forms many theories, the reader never receives a satisfactory answer.
De Alba's tale goes into graphic description about the murder, rape, violence and exploitation of women and is not recommended to those who are sensitive to such subjects. The story discusses political issues reagarding police corruption, violence towards women and gay/lesbian rights.
Pamela L. Wells, Lindenhurst Public Library
Mr. Potter by Jamaica Kincaid
Jamaica Kincaid has created in Mr. Potter a poetic novel that follows the life of a poor man who works on his native island of Antigua. Mr. Potter struggles throughout the novel to transcend his poverty by working as a chauffer who spends his days driving past “the only towns he has ever seen and the graveyard where he will be buried”. Kincaid’s prose is rich and complex, though some may find it quirky, even hypnotic, as words and phrases are repeated again and again in a way that those who prefer poetry may appreciate more than those who like a plot-driven story. But it is a short novel that is strong on characterization and has been well received by the reviewers.
Read-Alikes:
Paule Marshall
Maya Angelou
Kathleen Scheibel, South Country Library
The Back Room by Carmen Martin Gaite
The book is about a writer, based on the author herself, who has neither motivation nor inspiration. She receives an unexpected visit from a man in black, who claims to be a journalist with whom she had arranged an interview. He is a very ambitious and disturbing character, whose name is never revealed, and about whom we learn too little.
They both engage in a lasting conversation which dominates the novel and submerges the protagonist into her likes and dislikes, but most importantly into her memories about her condition as a woman under the dictatorship of General Franco in Spain.
The novel is heavily psychological and somewhat fantastic. It is not an easy read, but as the man in black concludes, “literature is a challenge to logic…not a refuge against uncertainty.”
Rhea Pollock, Brentwood Public Library
Mother Tongue by Demetria Martinez
This book is dedicated “to the memory of the disappeared,” the El Salvadorans who lost their lives during the 1970’s and 80’s at the time of a U.S, supported dictatorship in El Salvador. By 1991, and the enactment of a new Constitution, this civil war left 75,000 dead, 8,000 missing and an estimated million people homeless. Maria, a young woman of Mexican-American descent, becomes involved with Jose Luis, an illegal refugee, after she is asked to help by her friend Soledad, a human rights activist. The personal and the political are intertwined as the love affair develops: Maria can never truly understand the scars, both physical and emotional, that Jose Luis bears, though she loves him deeply long after he, too, disappears. The emotions expressed are bare and real, the language poetic and imaginative.
Read-Alikes:
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
Guerrillas by V.S. Naipaul
A Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion
House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
Suzanne McGuire, Commack Public Library
Havana Black by Leonardo Padura
Havana Black is the second volume of Leonardo Padura’s Havana Quartet series to appear in English. The Quartet all feature Inspector Mario Conde of the Havana police force, a macho and unconventional, but cynical cop who’s desperately trying to leave the force.
The novel takes place during the approach of Hurricane Felix in 1989. Padura uses the hurricane as a metaphor for the architectural decay and possible destruction in Havana, but also as a comment on the rot and corruption which is eating away at Cuban society.
The story centers on Conde trying to uncover the truth behind the death of a former revolutionary minister whose body washes ashore tortured and murdered. The minister was in charge of expropriating art works for the revolution, but eventually he defected to Spain and then to Miami.
Havana Black is surprising in its harsh and cynical critique of Cuban society under the Castro regime, as the author is a lifelong resident of Cuba and could possibly face the wrath of the regime. Padura reveals the banality and cynicism of daily life in Cuba through his characters. While they are exasperated with the current state of Cuba, they also find much to love about their homeland. It’s not clear if moving to Miami, with all its material riches, would satisfy them. Havana Black can better be read as social commentary on life in Cuba than as a mystery, as the action is often slow to develop. Well-developed characters help the plot along.
Read-Alikes could include other authors with cynical, world-weary detectives who live in corrupt societies:
Michael Dibdin’s Aurelio Zen
Stuart Kaminsky’s Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov
Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza’s Inspector Espinosa series.
Bruce Silverstein, Patchogue-Medford Public Library
The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte
The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Revere was written in 1993 and translated into English in 1996. This mystery novel centers on the world of rare book collecting. The main character Corso is well known as an intermediary to rare books dealers: someone who can obtain antique and valuable books through conventional or unconventional methods. Corso is working on two assignments. He has been hired to authenticate a copy of the, The Book of the Nine Doors of the Kingdom of Shadows; a book it is said can be used to summon the devil. He is also asked by a friend to validate a newly found copy of a chapter of the novel The Three Musketeers written by Alexandre Dumas. During his investigation, Corso calls on two rare book collectors who are killed shortly after his visit. He is also followed by a beautiful woman and is attacked by a mysterious man with a scar on his forehead. Corso begins to think the two assignments are interconnected. He is joined by a woman who claims to be his guardian angel and together they set out to solve the strange occurrences that seem to have begun since he has had possession of these two rare manuscripts.
Vicki Lever, Babylon Public Library
The Secret Supper by Javier Sierra
An inquisitor from Rome, Father Agostino Leyre, is sent to Milan in 1497 with a riddled message from a soothsayer. His job is to decipher the code and find the heretics who have a different view of the true Christianity. Leonardo Da Vinci and his painting of the Last Supper are implicated.
Secret codes, famous art and conspiracies within the Catholic Church in the late 15th century make this historical thriller an interesting read. People interested in art history, church history, and fans of Dan Brown should enjoy.
Karen Jaffe, Comsewogue Public Library
Pepita Jimenez by Juan Valera
Juan Valera Y Alcala Galiano (1824-1905) Spanish novelist, member of a leading liberal family, son of a retired commodore, married the marquesa de la Paniega, widow of a Swiss general, He was educated at Malaga and the University of Granada where he took a degree in law. Senor Valera entered diplomatic service in 1847, was also a senator and an ambassador stationed at various posts including Naples, Lisbon, Washington, Paris and Rio de Janeiro. During the last ten years of his life he took no active part in politics. A work of poetry was his first publication and he “excelled neither as a poet nor as an impartial critic; he had the vocation of the novelist, though he was slow in discovering it.” Pepita Jimenez 1874 was followed by Las ilusiones del Doctor Faustino 1875, Comendador Mendoza 1877 and others. They are not all of equal excellence, but they are characteristic of their author, and “abound in understanding, humorous comment and sympathetic creation.” At the close of the 19th century Valera was recognized as the most eminent man of letters in Spain.
Marie Horney, Cold Spring Harbor Library
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa
This novel is set in Peru in the mid-1950s. It is humorous and autobiographical with chapters alternating between the narrator, young Marito Varguitas who works in the news department of a second-rate radio station, longs to become a writer, and has a love affair with his Aunt Julia; and the soap operas written by Pedro Camacho, the Bolivian scriptwriter for a sister station, Radio Central. Mario is eighteen years old and becomes romantically involved with Julia, a thirty-two year old divorcee and his uncle’s sister-in-law. Pedro Camacho is brought to Lima from Bolivia to write and produce soap operas for Radio Central. His soap operas are outlandish and extremely popular. At first the two worlds seem far apart, each soap opera chapter stands by itself and the story of Mario’s courtship with Aunt Julia continues. The novel is built upon the reality of Vargas Llosa’s actual lived experience and the alternative world of imagination and fiction as depicted in the soap operas. As the novel continues the scriptwriter confuses his characters and is unable to keep his stories straight to the point of having a mental breakdown himself. At the same time, the autobiographical chapters become more melodramatic and begin to resemble a soap opera as Mario’s relationship with Aunt Julia causes a family scandal and their attempts to marry illegally, due to Mario’s age, become farcical. The difference between reality and fantasy blur.
Read-Alikes:
The Garden of Forging Paths by Jorge Luis Borges
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Rayuela (Hopscotch) by Julio Cortazar
Tres Tristes Tigres (Three Trapped Tigers) by Guillermo Cabrera Infante
La Caverna de las Ideas (The Athenian Murders) by Jose Carlos Somoza
Joanne Genovese, Smithtown Library
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Daniel’s widowed father owns a second-hand bookstore in post-World War II Barcelona. One day Sr. Semperetakes his eleven-year-old son to the Cemetery of Lost Books, a massive sanctuary where books are guarded from oblivion. Daniel is permitted to choose one book if he promises to safeguard it forever. He chooses The Shadow of the Wind by Julián Carax; he reads it, loves it, and soon learns it is both very valuable and very much in danger because someone is determinedly burning every copy of every book written by the obscure Carax. His love of the book leads Daniel on his search for more of Carax’s books and it is this search that propels the novel. The Shadow of the Wind has everything: colorful characters, money, greed, envy, murder, betrayal, romance, mystery, young boy coming of age, lust, friendship, love, tragedy & comedy. Set in Barcelona, Spain from the time of the Spanish Civil War to post-World War II, it is full of the most interesting and unforgettable of characters. Part mystery, romance, and history, Zafón’s book truly satisfies.
Kathleen Carter, Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library
Santa Evita by Nina Marie Martinez
Published forty-three years after Eva Peron’s death, Martínez’ novel, Santa Evita, has been called a master narrative of a historical figure who became the dominant cultural icon of an entire nation. Martínez writes about Argentina’s twenty-year obsession with Evita’s remains by those who wished to use its power for political gain.
Beautifully written but a bit macabre, with a cast of freakish individuals – the embalmer who makes three replicas of her body, the colonel who had been her aide-de-camp driven to madness by years of trying to protect the body and replicas of the adored Eva Peron from being desecrated or kidnapped, and the Argentineans who idolized her, comparing her to the Blessed Mother; storming the Vatican to have her elevated to sainthood, even before her death.
The author becomes a character in his own book admitting that he became one of those obsessed with the Evita myth. Her charisma in death was as powerful as it had been in life--she cast a spell over everyone who came into contact with her. Santa Evita is a good detective novel and a social/political commentary of Argentina in the last half of the 20th century.
Read-Alikes:
The Perón Novel by Tomás Eloy Martinez
Imagining Argentina by Lawrence Thornton
The Tango Singer by Tomás Eloy Martinez
Grace O'Connor, West Islip Public Library
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