MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable study of the friendship between a Palestinian and a Pakistani, broken by a hostile state
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Best of 2023: Letters from Latin America
LEO BOIX selects the best of non-fiction, fiction, poetry and children’s picture books
MATTHEW HAWKINS rakes through un-fancy words and flair-free summaries to find who and what might be flamboyant
PETER MASON is exhilarated by an exciting, well-considered and historically minded tribute to the great Trinidadian instrument
Reducing historical lives to ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles, we lose the nuance of those lives and a clearer understanding of past societies, suggests CLAIRE ISABELLA GILMOUR
CHRIS SEARLE relishes the genius of pianist Alexander Hawkins, his many ensembles, and his new album
IT has been a remarkable year for Latinx and Latin American literature in Britain, with books of fiction, non-fiction and poetry exploring a rich culture, traditions, individual stories, and a whole region still much under-represented in the British publishing world.
Memoir & Fiction
In 2023, one of the most notable publications was Solito (Oneworld, £10.99) by Salvadorian-American poet and activist Javier Zamora. The memoir tells the story of Zamora’s journey as a nine-year-old nicknamed Chepito to reunite with his parents in the US. They had fled El Salvador due to the civil war and lack of opportunities.
Zamora’s journey lasted seven weeks and spanned over 4,000 kilometres. It is a remarkable contribution to migration literature, portraying the challenges and hope of those who embark on such journeys.
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LEO BOIX reviews two powerful Latin American novels in which myth and crime fiction expose the deadly consequences of patriarchy, clandestine abortion and state violence
From post-human revolution in Puerto Rico to trans poetics and queer mythmaking, these three books that imagine new ways of being together
CHRIS MOSS joins the hunt in Argentina for the works of Poland’s most enigmatic exile
A ghost story by Mexican Ave Barrera, a Surrealist poetry collection by Peruvian Cesar Moro, and a manifesto-poem on women’s labour and capitalist havoc by Peruvian Valeria Roman Marroquin