LIST: Latinx authors to add to your reading list

Elizabeth Acevedo

Elizabeth Acevedo is a Dominican-American LGBTQ+ author who identifies as Afro-Latina. Acevedo grew up as an aspiring rapper and later discovered poetry as her passion, specializing in slam poetry. She was listed as a New York Times Bestseller, National Book Award Winner, Carnegie Medal winner as well as the 2018 Michael L. Printz Award, the 2018 Pura Belpre Award, and Boston-Globe Hornbook Award Prize for Best Children’s Fiction of 2018.

Notable works include: “The Poet X,” “Clap When You Land” and “With the Fire on High.”

Javier Zamora

Javier Zamora is a Salvadoran poet who migrated to the United States at the age of 9. Zamora writes poetry regarding his trek to America and often addresses concepts such as history, borders, and memory.  Zamora has been a recipient of many awards, including the 2011 Organic Weapon Arts Contest and has appeared in American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Magazine, among others.

Notable works include: “Unaccompanied,” “Let Me Try Again” and “Second Attempt at Crossing.”

Carmen Maria Machado

Carmen Maria Machado is a Cuban-American LGBTQ+ author known for her works spanning the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres. Machado is frequently published in The New Yorker, Granta and Lightspeed Magazine. She was a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award for fiction, awarded the 2017 National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize Award, and won the 2018 Bard Fiction Prize.

Notable works include: “Her Body and Other Parties,” “In the Dream House” and “The Low, Low Woods.”

Cristina Henriquez

Cristina Henriquez is a Panamanian-American author who recently gained popularity. Henriquez graduated from Northwestern University and earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her works have appeared throughout several literary magazines and was published in The New Yorker in 2006.

Notable works include: “Come Together, Fall Apart” and “The Book of Unknown Americans.”

Diana Gabaldon

Diana Gabaldon is a Mexican-American author who is known for her historical fiction, romance series “Outlander.” Before writing fiction that would boost Scotland’s tourism economy, her life consisted of academia and publishing scientific journals. She worked as a university professor for over 12 years, wrote papers and journals for over a decade with her concentration being scientific-computation and holds three STEM degrees (Zoology, Marine Biology and aPd.D in Quantitative Behavioral Ecology.)  While working on the final books of the series, she currently is co-producer and consultant for the TV show adaptation “Outlander.”

Notable works include: “Outlander,” “Voyager” and “Drums of Autumn.”

Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano was a Uruguayan journalist, writer and novelist who lived from 1940 to 2015. In 1973, Galeano escaped a military coup that took power in Uruguay, being exiled to Argentina with his most popular book, “Open Veins of Latin America” that was banned by right- wing military government within Uruguay as well as Chile and Argentina. He later fled to Spain and then returned to Uruguay. He was awarded the 2006 International Human Rights Award by Global Exchange and the 2010 Stig Dagerman Prize.

Notable works include: “Open Veins of Latin America,” “Memory of Fire” and “Children of the Days.”

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Gabriel Garcia Marquez was a Colombian writer who lived from 1927 to 2014. Marquez started as a

journalist and later wrote several acclaimed non-fiction novels and short stories. Marquez was also a part of The Latin Boom, with several of his works challenging the conservative criticism of Colombian literature critics, and later received the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Notable works include: “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” “Love in the Time of Cholera” and “Chronicle of a Death Foretold.”

George Perez

George Perez is a Puerto-Rican comic book writer and artist. Perez began to build his profession working as an assistant in 1973 and went on to become one of the most recognizable artists within the world of comics. After working on the 1987 reboot of “Wonder Woman” for five years, Perez retired, leaving as an artist after issue no. 24 and remaining as writer until issue no. 62.

Notable works include: “The New Teen Titans,” “Crisis on Infinite Earths” and “Wonder Woman.”

Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende is a Chilean writer and has been called “the world’s most widely read Spanish-language author.” Allende’s novels are based on personal and historical events that pay homage to the lives of several women and consist of both realism and myth. Allende received the 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Notable works include: “The House of the Spirits,” “City of the Beasts” and “Paula.”

Jaquira Diaz

Jaquira Diaz is a Puerto-Rican LGBTQ+ author who focuses her writing on the of growing up as a young woman. Diaz’s works are published in The Guardian, The New York Times Style Magazine, and The Best American Essays and earned her awards like The Pushcart Prize, an Elizabeth George Foundation grant, and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Kenyon Review, and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. Diaz currently works as an editor at the Kenyon Review and a part-time professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, while working on the sequel of her most popular work, Ordinary Girls.

Notable works include: “Ordinary Girls,” “You Do Not Belong Here” and “Rescue from Dead Dog Beach.”

Julio Cortazar

Julio Cortazar was an Argentine novelist and short story writer who lived from 1914 to 1984. Cortazar worked as a primary and secondary school teacher. Cortazar was one of the founders of the 1960’s and ‘70’s literary movement known as The Latin American Boom.

Notable works include: “Blow Up,” “Hopscotch” and “A Manual for Manuel.”

Julia Alvarez

Julia Alvarez is a Dominican-American author. Shortly after Alvarez’s birth in New York City, she and her parents returned to the Dominican Republic and were later forced to flee to the United States because her father was engaged in a plot to overthrow the dictator. Alvarez was awarded the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award and the 2013 National Medal of Arts from President Obama.

Notable works include: “In the Time of the Butterflies,” “Afterlife” and “Saving the World.”

Junot Diaz

Junot Diaz is a Dominican-American creative writing professor, fiction editor at Boston Review, and author. Diaz migrated with his family to New Jersey at the age of 5 and attended Rutgers University as well as Cornell University. After obtaining his MFA from Cornell, Diaz began his writing career and published his first book, “Drown”. He was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a MacArthur Fellowship “Genius Grant” in 2012.

Notable works include: “The Cheater’s Guide to Love,” “This Is How You Lose Her” and “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.”

Paulo Lins

Paulo Lins is a Brazilian teacher, poet, and novelist. He started his career choreographing Brazilian dances, known as sambas, and later became a writer. Lins is most known for his book, “City of God”, which was adapted as a movie in 2002. He was awarded the 1995 Bolsa Vitae de Literatura Award.

Notable works include: “City of God” and “Then There Was Samba.”

Sandra Cisneros

Sandra Cisneros is a Chicana novelist, poet, short story writer, and artist. Cisneros grew up migrating between Mexico and the United States and this reflects throughout her writing, with cultural hybridity being a recurring theme. She was awarded a National

Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a 2015 National Metal of Arts.  Cisneros is also regarded as an overall key figure throughout Chicana literature.

Notable works include: “The House on Mango Street,” “Woman Hollering Creek” and “Caramelo.”