The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Sebastian, Four Mothers, Restless, and The Most Precious of Cargoes
Latest editorial
Letters from Latin America, May 1 2023
LEO BOIX reviews a novella by Peruvian writer August Higa Oshiro, a powerful book by young Colombian author Lorena Salazar Masso, and three poetry pamphlets, by Puerto Rican Sabrina Ramos Ruben, Venezuelan Eleonora Requena and Brazilian Tatiana Nascimento
Letters from Latin America
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
AN ELDERLY university professor from Lima wanders through the streets of the Peruvian capital after being forced out of his lifelong job. His name is Katzuo Nakamatsu, and like the book's author, he is the son of Japanese immigrants in Peru.
The despondent literature professor quickly descends into an abyss of human consciousness and abandonment as he begins to explore, like a dejected flaneur, not only his deteriorating state of mind but the poor neighbourhoods of Lima and the desperate people that inhabit them at night.
Katzuo’s journey is one of self-discovery to make sense of his Japanese roots and search for the meaning of life, death, and desire.
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