The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Sebastian, Four Mothers, Restless, and The Most Precious of Cargoes
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Letters From Latin America: July 21, 2022
New titles from across the continent: fiction by Mexican Juan Pablo Villalobos and Peruvian Katya Adaui and poetry collections by Chilean Veronica Zondek, Peruvian Julia Wong Kcomt and Mexican Adriana Diaz Enciso
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JOHN GREEN explores the argument that psychiatry needs to move away from the idea of just seeing and treating the individual
SYLVIA HIKINS applauds a polemic against “cleanfluencers” and considers radical alternatives to current inequalities of housework
RUTH AYLETT admires the blunt honesty with which a woman’s experience is recorded, but detects the unexamined privilege that underlies it
IAN SINCLAIR draws attention to the powerful role that literature plays in foreseeing the way humanity will deal with climate crisis
High quality pulp, rollicking online murders, Abnorman Britain, and high skates drama: reviews of The Get Off, Everyone In The Group Chat Dies, Pagans and First To Fall
DENNIS BROE notes what happens to content when the streaming giants incorporate AI and deregulation into their economic models
INVASION of the Spirit People (And Other Stories, £11.99) is Juan Pablo Villalobos sixth novel and one of his most compelling.
The story set in unnamed city where migrants battle against a worrying rise of neofascism, right-wing nationalism and societal paranoias about foreigners.
The main character, a middle-aged man “from the Southern Cone” called Gaston who is best friends with Max, an immigrant who runs a shabby restaurant in the city, and Pol, Max’s son, a young biologist sent to the tundra to research micro-organisms capable of surviving in extreme conditions.
More from this author
A pamphlet by British Latinx poet Patrick Romero McCafferty, poetry by Anglo-Argentinian Miguel Cullen, and a book of conjuring poems by Mexican Pedro Serrano
LEO BOIX selects the best books of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction written by Latinx and Latin American authors published this year
Mexican Yuri Herrera’s novel about Benito Juarez in New Orleans, and poetry by Mexican Fabio Morabito and Argentine Sergio Chejfec
Femicide and the search for justice in Mexico: a book by Cristina Rivera Garza; and a travel book through Latin America by Welsh poet Richard Gwyn