Must-Read Books by Chicanx, Mexican, and Mexican American Authors

From the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic and Velvet Was the Night comes a sizzling noir about desire, danger, and greed, in which seduction is the ultimate con. “Lush and passionate with magnetic prose … The Intrigue will grab you by the throat and not let go until its earth-shaking finale” (S. A. Cosby, author of King of Ashes).

A woman’s desperate flight from an Apache raid unfolds into a sweeping tale of the Mexico-U.S. border wars. Part epic, part alt-Western, Now I Surrender is Álvaro Enrigue’s most expansive and impassioned novel yet. It weaves past and present, myth and history into a searing elegy for a way of life that was an incarnation of true liberty — and an homage to the spark in us that still thrills to its memory.

An award-winning journalist’s exploration of how race, identity, and political trauma have influenced the rise in far-right sentiment among Latinos, and how this group can shape American politics.

A culinary journey along the Mexican-American border, telling the story of its intertwined cultures and communities with more than 100 vibrant, flavor-packed recipes from Top Chef star, Iron Chef Mexico finalist, and Tijuana-San Diego border kid Claudette Zepeda.

A fiercely poetic, tenderly observed portrait of young women’s travels on the fringes of Mexico and the United States, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Liliana’s Invincible Summer. Combining journalism, novelistic writing, and themes of female freedom, gore capitalism, and class struggle, Terrestrial is a meditation on travel and distance, and our ties to the earth we tread on.

When school sweethearts reunite in an unexpectedly bumpy quest for the smoothest spirit, they’ll prove that nothing pairs better with tacos than tequila.

In this mixed-media collection of short stories, personal essays, poetry, and comics, a celebrated group of authors shares the borders they have crossed, the struggles they have pushed through, and the two cultures they continue to navigate as Mexican Americans. Living Beyond Borders is at once an eye-opening, heart-wrenching, and hopeful love letter from the Mexican American community to today’s young readers.

In this empowering cross-country travelogue, journalist and activist Paola Ramos embarks on a journey to find the communities of people defining the controversial term, “Latinx.” She introduces us to the indigenous Oaxacans who rebuilt the main street in a post-industrial town in upstate New York, the “Las Poderosas” who fight for reproductive rights in Texas, the musicians in Milwaukee whose beats reassure others of their belonging, as well as drag queens, environmental activists, farmworkers, and the migrants detained at our border. Drawing on intensive field research as well as her own personal story, Ramos chronicles how “Latinx” has given rise to a sense of collectivity and solidarity among Latinos unseen in this country for decades. This important work is also available in Spanish.

Una deslumbrante novela sobre una familia mexicano-americana en Brownsville, Texas, que, por un acto de compasión, acaba involucrada en el tráfico de inmigrantes mexicanos a los Estados Unidos. (Where We Come From is also available in English.)

Although only six years old, Antonio Marez is perceptive beyond his years. He was brought into the world with the help of Ultima, a curandera, or folk healer, in touch with nature and the spirit world. Revered by some as a wisewoman but rebuked by others as a witch, Ultima has now come back to stay with Tony’s family in New Mexico. As Tony seeks out his destiny — torn between his mother’s farming forebears and his father’s wandering vaquero roots, between Spanish Catholicism and the gods of his indigenous ancestors — Ultima’s loving tutelage will help him navigate questions of life and death, good and evil, and reveal to him the vastness of the heritage that shapes him in this pioneering work of literature.

Discover this beautiful dual-language edition! As a young woman, Corina leaves her Mexican family in Chicago to pursue her dream of becoming a writer in the cafés of Paris. Instead, she spends her brief time in the City of Light running out of money and lining up with other immigrants to call home from a broken payphone. But the months of befriending panhandling artists in the métro, sleeping on crowded floors, and dancing the tango at underground parties are given a lasting glow by her intense friendships with Martita and Paola. Over the years, the three women disperse to three continents, falling out of touch and out of mind — until a rediscovered letter brings Corina’s days in Paris back with breathtaking immediacy.

A moving and powerful novel about the lives of the men, women, and children who endure a second-class existence and labor under dangerous conditions as migrant workers in California’s fields. Infused with the beauty of the California landscape and shifting splendors of the passing seasons juxtaposed with the bleakness of poverty, this vividly imagined novel is worthy of the people it celebrates and whose story it tells so magnificently. The simple lyrical beauty of Viramontes’s prose, her haunting use of image and metaphor, and the urgency of her themes all announce Under the Feet of Jesus as a landmark work of American fiction.

Mexican Gothic meets Rebecca in this debut supernatural suspense novel, set in the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence, about a remote house, a sinister haunting, and the woman pulled into their clutches …

The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero, a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who she will become and what she will become. Told in a series of vignettes — sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous—Sandra Cisneros’s masterpiece is a classic story of childhood and self-discovery. Few other books in our time have touched so many readers.

Growing up as the daughter of Mexican immigrants in Chicago in the ’90s, Erika Sánchez was a self-described pariah, misfit, and disappointment. Twenty-five years later, she’s now an award-winning novelist, poet, and essayist. In these essays, Sánchez writes about everything from sex to white feminism to debilitating depression, revealing an interior life rich with ideas, self-awareness, and perception. Raunchy, insightful, unapologetic, and brutally honest, Crying in the Bathroom is Sánchez at her best — a book that will make you feel a post-confessional high that comes from talking for hours with your best friend.

This classic love story takes place on the De la Garza ranch, as the tyrannical owner, Mama Elena, chops onions at the kitchen table in her final days of pregnancy. While still in her mother’s womb, her daughter-to-be weeps so violently she causes an early labor, and little Tita slips out amid the spices and fixings for noodle soup. This early encounter with food soon becomes a way of life, and Tita grows up to be a master chef, using cooking to express herself and sharing recipes with readers along the way. And don’t miss the Spanish-language edition of this bestselling novel!

Horizontal Vertigo: The title refers to the fear of ever-impending earthquakes that led Mexicans to build their capital city outward rather than upward. With the perspicacity of a keenly observant flaneur, Juan Villoro wanders through Mexico City seemingly without a plan, describing people, places, and things while brilliantly drawing connections among them. In doing so, he reveals, in all its multitudinous glory, the vicissitudes and triumphs of the city’s cultural, political, and social history: From indigenous antiquity to the Aztec period, from the Spanish conquest to Mexico City today — one of the world’s leading cultural and financial centers. Also available in Spanish!

Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents’ house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family. But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga’s role. Then a tragic accident on the busiest street in Chicago leaves Olga dead, and Julia is left behind to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family. But it’s not long before Julia discovers that Olga might not have been as perfect as everyone thought. With the help of her best friend, Lorena, and her first love (first everything), Connor, Julia is determined to find out. This read is also available in Spanish!