Latin+America

=LATIN AMERICA=

Non-fiction
Menchú, Rigoberta. //I, Rigoberta Menchú : an Indian woman in Guatemala.// Recounts the life of Rigoberta Menchú, a young Guatemalan peasant woman who turned to catechist work as an expression of political revolt and religious commitment after her brother and parents were murdered by the Guatemalan military; and sheds light on everyday life in Latin America's Indian communities.

Fiction
Alvarez, Julia. //In the Time of the Butterflies.// Set during the waning days of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republica in 1960, this extraordinary novel tells the story the Mirabal sisters, 3 young wives and mothers who are assassinated after visiting their jailed husbands.

Alvarez, Julia. //Before We were Free.// In the early 1960s in the Dominican Republic,12 year-old Anita learns that her family is involved in the underground movement to end the bloody rule of the dictator, General Trujillo.

Danticat, Edwidge. //Breath, Eyes, Memory.// Sophie, a child who was born of rape, leaves Haiti at the age of 12 to join her mother in New York City, where they both battle with the results of sexual abuse.

Danticat, Edwidge. //Farming of Bones.// Amabelle, a Haitian woman who has grown up as a servant in the home of Dominicans, falls in love with Sebastien, an itinerant sugarcane cutter, and together they try to weather the storms of persecution against their people. Whelan, Gloria. //The Disappeared.// Silvia tries to save her brother, Eduardo, after he is captured by the military government in 1970s Argentina.

Miller-Lachmann, Lyn. //Gringolandia.// In 1986, when seventeen-year-old Daniel's father arrives in Madison, Wisconsin, after 5 years of torture as a political prisoner in Chile, Daniel and his 18-year-old girlfriend use different methods to help this bitter, self-destructive stranger who yearns to return home and continue his work.

Non-fiction
Nazario, Sonia.//Enrique's Journey.// Addresses the issues of family and illegal immigration through the story of a young boy's dangerous journey from Honduras to the U.S. in search of his mother, who left him and his sibling behind make a better life for her family.

Non-fiction
Bowden, Mark. //Killing Pablo : The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw.// Traces the rise of Columbian drug lord Pablo Escobar and his ultimate defeat--death in 1993, after a sixteen-month manhunt.

Fiction
Abelove, Joan. //Go and Come Back.// Alicia, a young tribeswoman living in a village in the Amazonian jungle of Peru, tells about the two American women anthropologists who arrive to study her people's way of life.

Greene, Michele. //Chasing the Jaguar.// After having unsettling dreams about the kidnapped daughter of her mother's employer, fifteen-year-old Martika learns that she is a descendant of a long line of curanderas--Mayan medicine women with special powers. Includes glossary of Spanish words.

Mikaelsen, Ben. //Tree Girl.// When, protected by the branches of one of the trees she loves to climb, Gabriela witnesses the destruction of her Mayan village and the murder of nearly all its inhabitants, she vows never to climb again until, after she and her traumatized sister find safety in a Mexican refugee camp, she realizes that only by climbing and facing their fears can she and her sister hope to have a future.

Non-fiction
Smith, Nigel. //The Enchanted Amazon Rain Forest : Stories from a Vanishing World.// Compilation of myths and legends told by people living in the tropical forests of the Amazon basin, discussing how many of the tales actually contain messages about conservation and respect for nature.

Fiction
Allende, Isabel. //City of the Beasts.// When 15-year-old Alexander accompanies his individualistic grandmother on an expedition to find a humanoid Beast in the Amazon, he experiences ancient wonders and a supernatural world as he tries to avert disaster for the Indians.

Hudson, W.H. //Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest.// Seeking refuge in the jungles of Venezuela following a failed revolutionary coup, Abel, a young European, falls in love with Rima, a lovely and mysterious girl of the jungle, and the two travel through dense South American jungles and arid grasslands to Rima's distant homeland.

Fiction
Cameron, Ann. //Colibri.// Kidnapped when she was very young by an unscrupulous man who has forced her to lie and beg to get money, a twelve-year-old Mayan girl endures an abusive life, always wishing she could return to the parents she can hardly remember.

Resau, Laura and Maria Virginia Farinango. //The Queen of Water.// In a poor Andean village in Ecuador, 7-year-old Virginia is sold off by her parents as a servant to an academic, mestizo family. In her new home, the wife beats her, the husband gropes her, and she is insulted as a longa tonta (stupid Indian). Still, she teaches herself to read and write and begins to perform science experiments in secret.

Non-Fiction
Allende, Isabel. //My Invented Country.// The author explores the landscapes and people of her native country; recounts the 1973 assassination of her uncle, which caused her to go into exile; and shares her experiences as an immigrant in post-September 11 America.

Fiction
Azuela, Mariano. //The Underdogs: A Novel of the Mexican Revolution.// During the Mexican Revolution, Demetrio is forced to side with the rebels so he can save his family, and while he is fighting in Pancho Villa's army, he realizes he is more violent than he thought possible.

Lake, Nick. //In Darkness.// In the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake, Shorty, a poor, fifteen-year-old gang member from the slums of Site Soleil, is trapped in the rubble of a hospital and as he grows weaker, he has visions and memories of his life of violence, his lost twin sister, and of Toussaint L'Ouverture, who liberated Haiti from French rule in 1804.

Llosa, Mario Vargas. //Death in the Andes.// Set in an isolated, rundown community in the Peruvian Andes, a part mystery, part political allegory follows a series of disappearances that involve the Shining Path guerrillas and a local couple who performs Dionysian sacrifices.

Moeri, Louise. //Forty-third War.// Twelve-year-old Uno is conscripted into the army of a revolutionary force in a Central American country that is fighting for its freedom.

Schmidt, C.A. //Useful Fools.// A 15-year-old Peruvian boy, whose mother runs a clinic for poor village children, becomes caught up in the war after Sanderistas bomb the clinic, killing his mother and throwing his family into turmoil.

Temple, Frances. //Taste of Salt.// In the hospital after being firebombed and beaten by the Tonton Macoutes, 17-year-old Djo tells the story **of** his impoverished life to a young woman who, like him, has been working with the social reformer Father Aristide to fight the repression in Haiti.

Fiction
Cisneros, Sandra. //Woman Hollering Creek.// A collection of **short stories** by the Chicana writer which explores life on both sides of the Mexican border.

Esquivel, Laura. //Like Water for Chocolate : a Novel in Monthly Installments, with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies.// Tita, the youngest of 3 daughters, is expected to serve her mother for the rest of her life, & in order to show her love to Pedro, who is engaged to her sister, she cooks for him.

Fiction
Set in an isolated, rundown community in the Peruvian Andes, a part mystery, part political allegory follows a series of disappearances that involve the Shining Path guerrillas and a local couple who performs Dionysian sacrifices.

//The War of the End of the World.// In 19th-century Brazil, just after the establishment of the Republic, an apocalyptic movement, led by a mysterious prophet, establishes another republic of prostitutes, bandits, and beggars, who reject every aspect of the modern state.