Fiction > Latin American Fiction

Having captivated readers with such gems of travel writing as Video Night in Kathmandu, Pico Iyer now presents a novel whose central character is another place: the melancholy, ebullient, and dazzlingly inconsistent island that is Castro's Cuba. "On almost every page you can smell the dust, the cheap perfume and the rum of Havana today, or better still, tonight".--Los Angeles Times.Richard, the jaded photojournalist who is Iyer's narrator, thinks he believes in nothing. He knows that the most beautiful women cruising the Calle 21 a... read more

Havana 1957. On the same day that the Mafia capo Umberto Anastasia is assassinated in a barber's chair in New York, a hippopotamus escapes from Havana Zoo. Joaquin Porrata is the young Cuban journalist assigned to cover the latter story but, told by a secretive zookeeper that he 'knows too much', he soon discovers that the two events are not as unconnected as they might initially seem.An ardent and thrilling tale of innocence lost, of Havana's secret one-time world of violence, fantastic characters and extravagant crimes, "Dancing ... read more

Santa Teresa, on the Mexico-US border, is an urban sprawl that draws in lost souls. Among them are three academics on the trail of a reclusive German author; a New York reporter on his first Mexican assignment; a widowed philosopher; and a police detective in love with an elusive older woman.

In Africa, a man recounts his days within the grinding machinery of the slave trade. Though spared manacles and a hellish ocean crossing by assisting in the degrading business, he is forced finally to confront an inescapable, vicious paradox - in the eyes of both his masters and his own people, he is a pariah. In America, Rudi Williams serves life imprisonment in a Southern jail, brutalised by his guards and isolated from his fellow inmates. Through his letters he writes home to explain himself, and to educate his family in the rad... read more

Abilio Estevez conjures up the melancholy beauty of contemporary Havana with passion and eloquence in this story about a trio of misfits. When Victorio learns that his home is about to be demolished he leaves his job, bums his possessions and takes to the streets. Wandering the city, he meets two people who change his life: Salma, a young prostitute, and Don Fuco, an enigmatic old man who performs as a clown. In the ruins of an old theatre, Don Fuco initiates his new friends into the secrets of poetry and theatre, bringing beauty, ... read more

Things have never been easy for Oscar. A ghetto nerd living with his Dominican family in New Jersey, he's sweet but disastrously overweight. He dreams of becoming the next J. R. R. Tolkien and he keeps falling hopelessly in love. Poor Oscar may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fuku - the curse that has haunted his family for generations. With dazzling energy and insight Diaz immerses us in the tumultuous lives of Oscar; his runaway sister Lola; their beautiful mother Belicia; and in the family's uproarious journey from the Do... read more