Booksellers' Picks: Books in Spanish Language

Our booksellers have curated a list of remarkable books in Spanish, some with English translations and some without*, for our newsletter about foreign lit, In Other Words. Subscribe at the link, and enjoy our handpicked book selections, author events and interviews, and much more. 

*If a book has an English translation, the description will be available in the original and in translation. The books are available online and at the store. Enjoy!

The Taiga Syndrome, Cristina Rivera Garza (translated by Suzanne Jill Levine & Aviva Kana), 

From our bookseller Adam: “Taiga Syndrome glacially unfurls to reveal a spectacularly disturbing landscape. Traditional detective fiction tropes are turned upside down as our protagonist encounters exponentially more questions than answers.”

The Iliac Crest, Cristina Rivera Garza (translated by Sarah Booker), 

One dark and stormy night, two mysterious women invade an unnamed narrator’s house, where they proceed to ruthlessly question their host’s identity. While the women are strangely intimate―even inventing a secret language―they harass the narrator by repeatedly claiming that they know his greatest secret: that he is, in fact, a woman. As the increasingly frantic protagonist fails to defend his supposed masculinity, he eventually finds himself in a sanatorium.

Durante una inclemente noche de tormenta, alguien llama a la puerta de una casa ubicada en un agreste y solitario lugar frente al océano. Su dueño, un médico dedicado a paliar el dolor de los enfermos terminales, no imagina que su vida está a punto de cambiar de forma definitiva.

The Naked Woman / La Mujer Desnuda, Armonía Somers (translated by Kit Maude),  

Initially published in 1950 under a pseudonym, La mujer desnuda / The Naked Woman caused an unprecedented scandal in the realm of Uruguayan literature both for its bold sexual content and for the mysterious identity of its author. Written by Armonia Somers with her unique intensity and notorious richness of style, this work placed her firmly in the ranks of the grand Uruguayan writers.

Publicada inicialmente con seudonimo en 1950 La mujer desnuda causo un escandalo sin precedentes en el ambito de la literatura uruguaya no solo por su audaz contenido sexual sino ademas por el misterio de la identidad del autor. La obra llego al gran publico recien en 1966 cuando la editorial Tauro publico la tercera edicion y cuando Armonia Somers ya habia publicado dos colecciones de cuentos - El derrumbamiento y La calle del viento norte- asi como su segunda novela De miedo en miedo (Los manuscritos del rio). Escritora de inusual intensidad con una riqueza de estilo igualmente notoria su obra ha sido emparentada con la de los grandes narradores uruguayos del siglo XX Juan Carlos Onetti Felisberto Hernandez y Mario Levrero y con autoras como Clarice Lispector y Marosa di Giorgio.

Antígona González, Sara Uribe (translated by John Pluecker),

Antígona González is the story of the search for a body, a specific body, one of the thousands of bodies lost in the war against drug trafficking that began more than a decade ago in Mexico. A woman, Antígona González, attempts to narrate the disappearance of Tadeo, her elder brother. But Sara Uribe’s book is also a palimpsest that rewrites and cowrites the juxtapositions and interweavings of all the other Antigones, from the foundational Antigone of Sophocles passing through Griselda Gambaro’s Antígona furiosa, Leopoldo Marechal’s Antígona Vélez, María Zambrano’s La tumba de Antígona all the way to Antigone’s Claim by Judith Butler. 

Sexographies, Gabriela Wiener (translated by Lucy Greaves & Jennifer Adcock)

In fierce and sumptuous first-person accounts, renowned Peruvian journalist Gabriela Wiener records infiltrating the most dangerous Peruvian prison, participating in sexual exchanges in swingers clubs, traveling the dark paths of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris in the company of sex workers, undergoing a complicated process of egg donation, and participating in a ritual of ayahuasca ingestion in the Amazon jungle—all while taking us on inward journeys that explore immigration, maternity, fear of death, ugliness, and threesomes. Fortunately, our eagle-eyed voyeur emerges from her narrative forays unscathed and ready to take on the kinks, obsessions, and messiness of our lives. Sexographies is an eye-opening, kamikaze journey across the contours of the human body and mind.

Estio y Otros Cuentos, Ines Arredondo

A remarkable anthology by Sinaloan cult writer Inés Arredondo, who is considered one of the most interesting writers of the so-called “Mid-century Generation,” this work collects Arredondo’s best published stories. The anthology includes a prologue by Geney Beltran Felix--also from the Mexican state of Sinaloa--one of the most important young Mexican critics of recent years.

Antología de cuentos de la escritora sinaloense Inés Arredondo, verdadera escritora de culto y una de las autoras más interesantes de la llamada “Generación de medio siglo”, a la que también pertenecen figuras como Juan García Ponce y Salvador Elizondo. La antología recoge los mejores cuentos de las tres colecciones de relatos que la autora publicó en vida. La curaduría y prólogo corren a cargo del también sinaloense Geney Beltrán Félix, uno de los jóvenes críticos mexicanos más importantes de los últimos años.

Ensayos, Ines Arredondo

Alongside the Complete Stories, published in 2011, these essays complement the full work of Ines Arredondo. Here, the texts she wrote about Jorge Cuesta's work are presented together with her critical reviews and essays, which, despite their originality and richness, have received little attention until now.

Junto a los Cuentos completos, publicados en 2011, estos Ensayos complementan la obra completa de Inés Arredondo. Aquí se compilan los textos que escribió sobre la obra de Jorge Cuesta aunados a la totalidad de sus reseñas y ensayos críticos, que, a pesar de su originalidad y riqueza, han contado con poca difusión. 

Triptico Darwiniano, Armonía Somers

“To narrate is to collect materials, sensations, situations, in a sometimes involuntary act of storage. Then comes an architecture that can be stable or collapse according to the good or bad disposition of the elements. And ultimately it is about formulating an invitation to be together with the reader, which depends on a vital breath without which that pure form would be just that, form, albeit with a lowercase.” -Armonía Somers

Narrar es en primera instancia acopiar materiales, sensaciones, situaciones, en un acto a veces involuntario de almacenamiento. Luego adviene una arquitectura que puede resultar estable o venirse abajo según la buena o mala disposición de los elementos. Y en último extremo se trata de formular una invitación a estar juntos con el lector, lo que depende de un soplo vital sin el que aquella forma pura sería sólo eso, forma, aunque con minúscula.

Solo Los Elefantes, Armonía Somers          

Solo los elefantes encuentran mandragora is a “total novel,” written from a semi-autobiographical perspective, offers a portrait of one woman's painful, lonely life journey, in a novel marked by its complex construction, its innovative style, and its use of an alteration of time and reality. (Editor’s Review)

Por su naturaleza de novela total, narrada desde una perspectiva (auto)biográfica y con un mayor o menor grado de ambigüedad en cuanto a la naturaleza autobiográfica del conjunto, Sólo los elefantes encuentran mandrágora se sitúa como la primera novela escrita por una mujer dentro de ese conjunto de grandes obras totalizadoras que caracterizan lo mejor de la producción latinoamericana, y cuyo paradigma conforman, entre otras, Paradiso de Lezama Lima, El obsceno pájaro de la noche de José Donoso, Palinuro de Méjico de Fernando del Paso, y Yo el Supremo de Roa Bastos.” 

Ejercicios para el endurecimiento del espíritu, Gabriela Wiener                

«Cualquiera que se asome a este libro tendrá la impresión de que lo hace a través del ojo de la cerradura (...). Lo que hay del otro lado son historias trozadas que nos resultan perturbadoras, en parte porque desnudan pasiones, fragilidades, heridas a la vez familiares y extrañas, y en parte porque Gabriela Wiener las aborda con un lenguaje que no se parece a ningún otro, abismándonos a unas realidades que aun cuando parecieran develarse no acaban de entregársenos. Hay en esta poesía algo que nos remite a la ternura y la crueldad de los niños, a la insolencia y el miedo final de los adolescentes y a la infinita soledad que duerme en el fondo de la vida adulta» (Piedad Bonnett).

"Anyone who looks at this book will have the impression that he/she does so through a keyhole (...). On the other side we see broken stories that are disturbing to us, partly because they undress passions, frailties, and wounds both familiar and strange....There is something in this poetry that refers us to the tenderness and cruelty of children, to the insolence and final fear of adolescents and to the infinite loneliness that sleeps at the bottom of adult life" (Piedad Bonnett).

Llamada Perdida, Gabriela Wiener           

Gabriela Wiener writes about who she is and the way in which she lives, and does so with refreshing sincerity. These autobiographical stories invite us to immerse ourselves in her world and take a good look at a woman fighting her demons. It addresses a variety of issues such as migration, motherhood, fear of death, loneliness of hotel rooms, triplets, the mysterious number eleven, and many others. This book makes the everyday appear as something rich and complex.