National Hispanic Heritage month recognizes the contributions and achievements of Latin Americans. Two of my favorite recent reads are science fiction novels that highlight environmental issues written by authors from Latin American.
Living in a nearly abandoned coastal South American city, a woman balances her relationship with her aging mother and hospitalized ex-husband while caring for a boy who suffers from a strange eating disorder. Pink Slime’s unnamed narrator watches the world around her deteriorating while struggling to maintain normalcy amid toxic winds, food shortages, power outages, and police patrols. As she recalls key moments from her past she wonders if there’s any connection between her town's new meat processing facility and some of the odd happenings.
Author Fernanda Trías was born in Montevideo, Uruguay and currently lives in Bogotá, Colombia, where she teachers a creative writing MFA program. She is the award-winning author of three novels. Pink Slime has been Longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature and named a Best Book of 2024 by NPR, Esquire, Publishers Weekly, and ScreenRant.
Michel Nieva’s Dengue Boy takes place in the extreme far future after the polar ice caps have melted, wealth disparity divides the population of Argentina’s tourist regions, and corporations create new diseases in order to profit from offering cures. Things get really wild when an intelligent mutant mosquito decides to investigate his origin story and settle some scores.
Dengue Boy is Argentinia author Michel Nieva’s first novel to be translated into English and the winner of the 2022 O. Henry Prize for Short Fiction. In 2021 Granta magazine selected Nieva as one of the best young Spanish-language writers.
Find other books by Hispanic authors on FCPL’s Hispanic Authors Recommended Reads booklist.
Alicia Cavitt
Information Specialist
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