Julia Alvarez was born in the Dominican Republic and migrated with her family to the United States in 1960. Her acclaimed first novel, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, received the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award, was listed by Americas magazine as 1993's No. 1 bestseller in Latin America, and was named by both the ALA and The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of 1991. Her second novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, was nominated for the 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award. She lives in Middlebury, Vermont.
A House for Miss Pauline (2025) Diana McCaulay "Where has Diana McCaulay been all my reading life? In this engrossing and glorious novel - reminiscent of V.S. Naipaul's A House for Mr. Biswas - prepare for full immersion in the world of Jamaica, not from a tourist's perspective but from the mind and heart and spirit of the unforgettable Miss Pauline, whose enslaved ancestors built the island that has historically dispossessed them. This is a profound and beautiful novel rich with encounters with the past and atonements in the present."
We Need No Wings (2024) Ann Dávila Cardinal "We need more novels that deepen our understanding of these later stages of a woman's life and put wings of hope on our hearts. The book soars, her best so far, a transcendent read."
Passiontide (2024) Monique Roffey "Roffey is channeling a woman story so deep and old it feels foundational to who we are and can be. Raw and beautiful and in your face, this novel is a liberating read."
Family Lore (2023) Elizabeth Acevedo "Elizabeth Acevedo's Family Lore is a sweeping multi-generational story of a family of women whose special powers have helped them overcome personal, familial, and historical challenges that both bond them together and at times threaten to pull them apart but ultimately navigate them into the full abrazos of love. Acevedo is in full command of her special powers as a storyteller of compassionate, capacious and lyrical imagination. Make room on your shelves, readers, for this strong new voice with an old soul and a deep well of understanding of who we wonderfully are for the brief time we are beings."
Dona Cleanwell Leaves Home (2023) Ana Castillo "Ana Castillo is de primera storyteller... Her voice is distinctive-zany, knowing, rhythmic, with its very own mix of Latino - U.S. of A. cadences... able to hold our attention from the first to last page."
Neruda on the Park (2022) Cleyvis Natera "Cleyvis Natera had me in her thrall from beginning to end. Neruda on the Park speaks to so many of our current challenges with moral imagination, grace, and wickedly good, page-turning storytelling."
A Ballad of Love and Glory (2022) Reyna Grande "Panoramic and sweeping, A Ballad of Love and Glory immerses us in the history of the Mexican-American War, a history all the more relevant today as we face the legacy and painful aftermath of that bloody war. Grande integrates a sweeping Tolstoyan vision and command of language with her very own Latin American popular traditions . . . This is indeed a grand and soulful novel by a storyteller who has hit her full stride."
The Rock Eaters (2021) Brenda Peynado "What a smart and intriguing writer I've just 'discovered'--though from the impressive list of credits on the title page, I can see that others have been luckier, sooner. Brenda Peynado's The Rock Eaters is adazzle with alluring stories, flights of fancy that don't just dissolve into cleverness or parse the world neatly into cliche or categories. The stories help us think through situations all around us in "the real world" in new, captivating ways. What I most admire is the moral imagination of these stories, never nudging, never obvious, but subtle and unsettling. Peynado is a writer willing to cross literary borders: magical realism, fable, parable, fiction, nonfiction--she erases those limiting storytelling parameters and her stories soar."
The Patron Saint of Pregnant Girls (2020) Ursula Hegi "By the author of the beloved Stones from the River, Hegi’s new novel is sure to be her next beloved book….A writer at the height of her powers. I can’t think of a better way to ‘endorse’ a novel than to say I will be gifting it to my book-loving friends and family - a gift, mind you, not a loan, as I want to keep this title in my keeper bookshelf along with several others of my favorite of Hegi’s novels. As in a circus after a particularly riveting performance, The Patron Saint of Pregnant Girls deserves a thunderous round of applause."
Tigers, Not Daughters (2020) Samantha Mabry "Move over, Louisa May Alcott! Samantha Mabry has written her very own magical Little Women for our times. This is no family of tamed girls but a clan of fierce and fighting young women who will draw readers into their spell. A celebration of the bonds of sisterhood and of the ways we heal by reaching beyond our losses, our brokenness and fears to the love that holds and heals."
Fruit of the Drunken Tree (2018) Ingrid Rojas Contreras "A coming of age story, an immigrant story, a thrilling mystery novel, thoroughly lived and felt--this is an exciting debut novel that showcases a writer already in full command of her powers. Make room on your shelves for a writer whose impressive debut promises many more."
Summer Hours At the Robbers Library (2018) Sue Halpern "This novel presents a full cast of intriguing, complex characters and a heart-warming message about how our losses are often what allow us to connect with each other."
The Lesser Tragedy of Death (2010) Cristina García "[A] brave and moving tribute to a brother gone astray; with skill, unflinching honesty, and redemptive compassion, Cristina García tracks his marvelous, complex, and errant life. . . . These poems are the beautiful, painful, astonishing result of a journey to hell and back in search of the brother she loves. With this first book of poems, García, one of our best novelists and storytellers, proves herself to be a talented poet as well."
The Meaning of Consuelo (2003) Judith Ortiz Cofer "A bittersweet tale of the price one pays to reinvent the story handed down by one's antepasados and familia. Consuelo is both herself and every mujer, and her story her own and that of her island, torn between self-discovery and safety."
The House on Mango Street (1991) Sandra Cisneros "It's not always that a luscious writer can be a luscious reader of her own work. This must be the voice she hears in her head when she writes her magical prose."
(b.1950)
