The literary world can both help you find yourself or lose yourself in a story. Whether it’s through the lens of Julia Alvarez or Gabriel García Márquez, there’s always a magical world awaiting through the creative words between Latin books.
Junot Díaz, Julia Alvarez, Isabel Allende, Sandra Cisneros and quite a few others are exceptions to the unwritten, well-practiced rule that Latinos can't penetrate the mainstream publishing industry. Nonetheless, some Latino authors are tired of fighting the good fight, and they've opted instead to pursue self-publishing.
BookCon, the annual fan convention established in NYC during the spring of 2014, was a phenomenal success. Welcoming hundreds from the entertainment and book industries and tens of thousands of book lovers, the event offered attendees sprawling diversity during its second year.
Born in NYC and raised amid the Germanic culture of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, author Daniel Cubias was considered very exotic. He was the only Latino friend to countless kids, and his cousins were the only other Latinos he knew. That static upbringing helped to shape Cubias' perspective as a writer, sharpen his attentiveness to the progress of U.S. Latinos and urge him to examine his cultural identity.
Colombian authorities recovered the prized first-edition copy of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" after it was plucked from a showcase at the International Book Fair in Bogota, said officials.
When Spanish-born author Maria E. Andreu was five years old, she wrote what she thought was original stories. In retrospect, "Sleeping Beauty" as told by her wasn't quite an original composition. However, the young adult novel, "The Secret Side of Empty," which tells a candid and hard-boiled account of immigration, certainly is an original and powerful work.
Whether a book is an audiobook, loaded up on a device, like an iPad, Kindle or Nook, or if it's in print form (which is still extremely popular among savvy teens), books continue to be a safe bet.
Buenos Aires, Argentina was home to author-illustrator Lila Quintero Weaver until age five, when she and her family immigrated to a small town in Alabama during 1961, in the heart of Alabama's Black Belt. "Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White" is an ode to the staying power of that family history and recognition that the ability to read and manipulate language is an "amazing privilege."
Novelist Ernesto Quiñonez published his first book "Bodega Dreams" in 2000. The enthralling work was promptly declared "a New Immigrant Class" by The New York Times. The narrative, with its El Barrio-raised protagonist, has received nods from Barnes & Noble, the Los Angeles Times and Time Magazine, who've praised Quiñonez for his prose, evocation of life and extraordinary ability to detail passion.
Zoraida Córdova, the acclaimed Young Adult novelist, immigrated to the United States from Guayaquil, Ecuador at the age of 6. Her relocation to the multicultural metropolis of New York City made a profound impression on her, and it deeply informed her writing. Her trilogy, "The Vicious Deep," owns Brooklyn as its backdrop, yet each character in the riveting, urban fantasy novels claims a small bit of Ecuador.
When author Natalia Sylvester was young, a teacher told her that there's a story behind every story behind every story. And Sylvester found this to be exceptionally true when applied to the narrative of Latinos and Latino writers in the U.S.
Elvis Valle, author of the historical novella "The Big Cave," looked to personal experiences when composing the fictional work, which gives a face to the terror of civil war and takes readers on a journey of hope, love, tragedy and loss during a time of civil unrest.
The third annual Comadres & Compadres Writers Conference, held at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, New York on Saturday, Sept. 27, was fantastic, and it was made possible by Las Comadres Para Las Americas, a virtual community of women who thrive on connectivity and dialogues about education, employment, culture and resources.
"Mañana Means Heaven" author Tim Z. Hernandez pays respect to his heritage and his family each time he writes stories about the people, experiences and realities that he and his family come from.
