Books to Read If You Loved Watching Roma

The hero of this novel is Júbilo Chi, a telegraph operator who is born with the ability to “hear” people’s true feelings and respond to their most intimate, unspoken desires. His life changes forever the day he falls deeply and irrevocably in love with Lucha, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy family. Their passion for each other enables them to build a happy life together — until their idyll is shattered by a terrible event that drives them bitterly apart. Only years later, as Júbilo lies dying, is his daughter able to unravel the mystery behind her parents’ long estrangement and bring about a surprising reconciliation.

In The Vintage Book of Latin American Stories, Julio Ortega and Carlos Fuentes present the most compelling short fiction from Mexico to Chile. Surreal, poetic, naturalistic, urbane, peasant-born: All styles intersect and play, often within a single piece.

Every year, Ceyala “Lala” Reyes’ family—aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers, and Lala’s six older brothers—packs up three cars and, in a wild ride, drive from Chicago to the Little Grandfather and Awful Grandmother’s house in Mexico City for the summer. Struggling to find a voice above the boom of her brothers and to understand her place on this side of the border and that, Lala is a shrewd observer of family life.

These are stories about transformation and danger, passion and heartbreak, terror and triumph. They are funny, deeply moving, and stunningly well-crafted, and they tap into the most universal and enduring human experiences:  love even in the face of danger and loss, the struggle to grow and keep faith amidst hardship and conflict, and the pursuit of authenticity and courage over apathy and oppression.

Loverboys is Ana Castillo’s stunning collection of twenty-three stories that depict the wildly varied faces of love, from rapturous beginnings to bittersweet endings. From the regret-tinged soulfulness of the title story in which a woman reminisces about a former lover, to the down-and-dirty settling of scores in “Vatolandia” to the high-spirited comedy of “La Miss Rose,” about a West Indian fortuneteller on a mission to help the lovelorn, Ana Castillo bares the secret hearts of women and men.

Celia Correas de Zapata, an internationally recognized expert in the field of Latin American fiction written by women, has collected stories by thirty-one authors from fourteen countries, translated into English by such renowned scholars and writers. The resulting book is a literary tour de force, stories written by women that speak to cultures throughout the world.

Richard and Sara Everton, just over and just under forty, have come to the small Mexican village of Ibarra to reopen a copper mine abandoned by Richard’s grandfather fifty years before. They have mortgaged, sold, borrowed, left friends and country, to settle in this remote spot; their plan is to live out their lives here, connected to the place and to each other.