10 Incredible Books by Hispanic-American Authors

Raquel is a third-year art history student who, despite feeling like she doesn’t belong in the privileged campus full of students with better connections and surer futures than hers, is preparing her final thesis. She’s no stranger to working twice as hard for the same opportunities as the other students, but she seems to catch a break when she begins seeing an older, well-connected art student and finds herself rising through the social ranks. 

Like many students of color, Raquel seems stuck between two different worlds, and as she attempts to balance the scales, she discovers the story of Anita de Monte. She was a rising star in the art world in 1985, and when she was tragically found dead in New York City, it was all anyone could talk about. Until it wasn’t. Raquel wasn’t even familiar with her name by the time she started working on her thesis in 1998. 

Exploring the stories and perspectives of both women, Anita de Monte Laughs Last is a powerful, witty account of the connections between power, love, and art, daring to ask who gets to be remembered and who is left behind in the rarefied world of the elite.

Frank Cruz is a post-punk 30 year-old who hadn’t seen his father for over 20 years, when suddenly he receives a call to inform him that his father is dying. Despite growing up in some of the poorest parts of California and fleeing to New York at 18, he chooses to return and take care of his father. He’s in bad shape; not only is he dying but he is also now completely blind, so Frank chooses not to correct him when he calls him Francisca, the baby girl Frank had been born as. 

Upon his father’s untimely death, Frank’s father leaves him a mysterious, crumbling photograph of his mother, and Frank makes the decision to return to New York to find her, and to finally start his life anew. When he gets there, his mother turns him away at her door, thrusting money at him, but then he meets the beautiful, fiery Nathalie, whom he falls quickly in love with. But after seven years of a free and easy life together, 9/11 forces Frank into his predestined fate. 

The Tower of the Antilles is an incredible short story collection detailing all the lives that Hispanic folks have lived on the island of Cuba. In each story, Cuba is the accidental catalyst, and sometimes even the scapegoat, for how history and fate can meddle even in the lives of people who they themselves believe are the most ordinary. 

There are stories about a Havana sex-show superstar who mysteriously disappears after the success of the revolution; a migrant family in their attempts to cope with separation and the deep repercussions that accompany it; a young woman who returns to Cuba post-revolution and inadvertently unearths a history of accommodation and betrayal among her family members who stayed behind; and an interrogation that divulges a series of fantasies about escape and a history of futility. 

A lyrical story about the conflicts and triumphs of the human heart, the ordinary seaman is 19 year-old Esteban, a veteran of the war in Nicaragua. He and 14 other men have come to America to become the crew of the Urus. 

But the Urus is a wreck, and docked on a deserted pier in Brooklyn; and because these men don’t have the means to return home, they quickly begin to feel trapped. Esteban in particular is still overcome with despair at the loss of his first love in the war, but he gradually finds the courage to escape the confines of the ship and make a go of it in the city. 

Another short story collection, this one is slightly different. Vida features a collection of short stories, but all about the same character, Sabina, as she attempts to find her footing within her family as a daughter of the Colombian diaspora, as well as her footing outside her family in her own life. 

We explore her experiences as a member of a family who is shunned by the community due to another relative’s unspeakable violent act, though in return she is befriended by the town bad boy with secrets of his own; her experiences in love where Sabina and other young drifters experiment looking for, and consequently running from, love; and her story of an urgent, self-imposed exile in Miami and how it fades upon meeting a mysterious Colombian woman with a tragic past. 

A Glass of Water is a searing, heartfelt story of brotherhood and the risks people will take to achieve the American dream. Casimiro and Nopal made the dangerous trek across the Mexican border and now work in the chili fields, so they may build a life for their sons. But then Nopal is brutally murdered, leaving her sons to maneuver their lives in an inconstant world without her. 

Lorenzo, the eldest, follows in his father’s footsteps, working the land and falling in love with a strong-willed woman who came to the migrant camp to study the workers’ lives. But Vito, the youngest, takes the opposite approach, letting his hot temper and restlessness turn him into a notorious boxer who travels the globe. Eventually, the brothers are forced to come together to face a common enemy. 

A vivacious story with plenty of magical realism and a sprinkle of social commentary, Leaving Tabasco is a charming story which features nightly story-telling from Delmira’s grandmother. When Delmira grows up, she will eventually seek out her missing father, and make a choice that will force her to leave home forever. 

Sonny Baca’s cousin Gloria was murdered—and her body was found drained of blood, with the Zia sun symbol carved into her stomach, a potential sign of witchcraft. In an attempt to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather’s legendary law legacy, Sonny investigates his cousin’s murder. But his quest for the truth surfaces a conflict between the ways of his ancestors and those of the city. 

Chicano introduces us to the Sandoval family, who have fled Mexico during the revolution and came to America looking for better opportunities. Hector Sandoval works the land and struggles to provide for his family while also enduring discrimination and injustice. 

Of his children, Pete is the only one who proves able to improve his circumstances, for a time. But then his daughter Mariana falls in love with a white man who refuses to marry her even though she is pregnant with his child. David fears the reaction of his loved ones, and Mariana is shunned by both families because even after all is said and done, she can’t help but love him. The clash of cultures in their relationship illustrate clearly what racial politics look like in America, even today.

Ramiro Lopez and Jake Upthegrove couldn’t be more different: Ramiro is a working-class, Mexican-American living in El Paso’s barrio, “Dizzy Land,” with a drug-addicted brother; and Jake is a rich white boy from the West Side with anger management issues and emotionally neglectful mother. The only thing in common is that they’ve never met their fathers. 

As their friendship develops, the two realize that they can overcome the chips on their shoulders and that close friendships can exist outside of the neighborhoods they grew up in. Their becomes a friendship of healing.