IN Guarani mythology, an almost mystical creature named Yaguarete-aba (“jaguar man”) can transform into a werewolf-like creature using jaguar skin, incense and chicken feathers to speak with the gods. There is also “acygua,” the jaguar part of the person, representing the Other of the gods and the human desire for immortality.

Jaguars, once a vibrant part of Paraguay’s cultural, religious and natural landscape, are now facing the threat of extinction, primarily due to human hunting and the rapid destruction of their natural habitat.

Despite the dwindling numbers of jaguars in South America, their symbolic power resonates in numerous stories and folktales from Paraguay and beyond. In Yaguarete White (University of Arizona Press, £19), Latinx poet Diego Baez evokes Guarani mythology through personal narratives and migrant experiences, skillfully woven a tapestry of cultural appreciation and diasporic resonances.

Baez uses Paraguayan Guarani, Spanish and English to create a multilayered poetical world where the jaguar reigns supreme in all its forms. In the opening section called Petei (one), the poem introduces the reader to the book’s main topics: multiple identities and the search for a family history that resurfaces after a trip to Paraguay or in a conversation with the father: “Jaguars come to represent/ the souls of all the dead. Inseparable from each other,/ this people and their origin. So it is, and so am I,/ here now in the temple.” 

Yearly family trips from the US to Paraguay, and distant cousins and uncles visited during family holidays, populate a book that moves between languages, cultures and family memories. 

“Some immigrants stuff language into duffel bags like contraband./ Other children never learn to handle the baggage of their claim,” writes the poet in Regalito, a poem that deals with the complexities of lost languages, migration and a father-son relationship that trascends borders. 

This auspicious collection includes many poetical forms, from postcard poems formed of found material from bloggers who post about their visits to Paraguay, prose, list and question-and-answer poems, to more historical or personal poems where the narrator explores what it means to be a US citizen of Paraguayan ancestry. 

“So you want to write in Guarani/ y/ But Papi never told you/ y/ All you can do is listen/ as the tias and the tios/reminisce, their laughter hissing.” 

This is a valuable addition to contemporary Latinx poetry, introducing readers to a promising Paraguayan-American writer.

[[{"fid":"65518","view_mode":"inlineleft","fields":{"format":"inlineleft","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"inlineleft","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-inlineleft","data-delta":"1"}}]]Simpatia (Seven Stories Press, £12.99) is Venezuelan writer Rodrigo Blanco Calderon’s second novel after his multiaward-winning The Night. 

“On the day his wife left the country, Ulises Kan decided to get himself a dog.” Thus begins a Homeric journey in present-day Caracas, where abandoned dogs, Venezuelan past and recent history from Simon Bolivar to Hugo Chavez, broken-down relationships and family secrets are told with unexpected results.

The book, translated jointly by Noel Hernandez Gonzalez and Daniel Hahn, tells the story of Ulises Kan, an orphan from Caracas obsessed with The Godfather film trilogy who, after the death of his father-in-law General Ayala, inherits a mysterious house called Los Argonautas that he should turn into a dog shelter as part of a bizarre will.

This novel was longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2024 and features numerous amusing characters. Among them are an elderly Spanish butler named Senor Segovia and his older brother Paco, who has been working at the Hotel Humboldt since the 1950s. There is Ulises’ lover, Nadine, a woman of French descent who dances in a trance at dawn in the garden of a house converted into a dog shelter. There are also several dogs, including a large one named Iros, with prophetic undertones.

Although the book may seem convoluted with its many story threads and time jumps, it ultimately weaves irony, humour and surrealism into a narrative that highlights the bizarre in everyday life.