Petrona used to live on a farm in Colombia, with her nine brothers and her sister. Then the paramilitary showed up, burned down their house and their fields, and took her father and her three oldest brothers. Now, she, her mother, three of her brothers and her sister live in shack in the slums of Bogotá. At 13 she is sent to work as a maid for the Santiagos, a wealthy family in ... Read More...
The Lucky Ones: A Novel
Covering a span from the early 1990s to present day, The Lucky Ones is a novel about Colombia that is as densely dark as that country’s rainforests. Like those forests the novel is home to a wide array of creatures ranging from the innocent to the dangerous; those that hide in the underbrush and those that can adapt quickly to the changing landscape. Who the lucky ones ... Read More...
Sergio Y.
Armando is a seventy-year-old highly esteemed psychiatrist in São Paulo and the narrator of Sergio Y. He is writing because of a patient he had many years ago—a seventeen-year-old boy who came to see him for several months but abruptly ended their sessions without explanation after returning from vacation in New York City. The boy’s name is Sergio and through a chance ... Read More...
Cartwheel
Maybe that was the problem with this family—they were all in direct competition with one another to see who could bend over backward the farthest, who could suffer the most. Jennifer Dubois’ new novel, Cartwheel, is as knotted and tangled as the judicial system itself. Add the fact that it takes place in a foreign country and you have the makings of a novel that will grip ... Read More...
The Rhythm of Memory
Octavio met his beloved wife, Salomé, when she was 17, attending a convent school. He wooed her relentlessly despite her family’s objections to his low status and lack of any real means of supporting her. They marry anyway and with his good looks and charisma Octavio goes on to become one of the most well-known movie stars in Chile. Their life is blessed with three beautiful ... Read More...
