Popular South American Cultural Books
Find cultural books written by authors from South America for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (23)
11.
Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel García Márquez EN
Country: South America / 
Colombia
Colombia
Description:
In 1949 Garcia Marquez witnessed the opening of several tombs, one of which contained the skeleton of a young girl with 22 metres of red hair. This novel recreates her legend as a popular saint. Marquez won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982."
12.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez EN
Country: South America / Colombia
Colombia
Description:
One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women -- brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul -- this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.
13.
Open Veins of Latin America : Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by Eduardo Galeano EN
Country: South America / 
Uruguay
Uruguay
Description:
Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx. Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation. Thus he is concerned with gold and silver, cacao and cotton, rubber and coffee, fruit, hi... continue
14.
Sea of Death by Jorge Amado EN
Country: South America / 
Brazil
Brazil
Description:
Sea of Death tells stories of the dockside of Salvador, Bahia. The lives of the sailors of sloops in the bay from which Bahia gets its name are centred on the mythology surrounding the goddess Iemanjá, the "Queen of the Ocean" or the "Mother of Waters", are central to this novel, which portrays their daily struggle for survival. The novel features a variety of characters whose lives unfold around the story of two lovers, Guma and Lívia. They include the black Rufino and his mulatto lover Esmeralda; Francisco, Guma’s uncle, who mends nets; and the foul-mo... continue
15.
The Affairs of the Falcóns by Melissa Rivero EN
Country: South America / 
Peru
Peru
Description:
A stunning debut novel about a young undocumented Peruvian woman fighting to keep her family afloat in New York City Ana Falcón, along with her husband Lucho and their two young children, has fled the economic and political strife of Peru for a chance at a new life in New York City in the 1990s. Being undocumented, however, has significantly curtailed the family’s opportunities: Ana is indebted to a loan shark who calls herself Mama, and is stretched thin by unceasing shifts at her factory job. To make matters worse, Ana must also battle both criticism from Lucho’s cousin—who has made it obvio... continue
16.
The Art & Practice of Spiritual Herbalism : Transform, Heal, and Remember with the Power of Plants and Ancestral Medicine by Karen M. Rose EN
Country: South America / 
Guyana
Guyana
Description:
The Art & Practice of Spiritual Herbalism, written by leading Black herbalist Karen Rose, addresses herbalism and medicine making from the perspective of diasporic ancestral traditions.
17.
The Curse of Nemur : In Search of the Art, Myth, and Ritual of the Ishir by Ticio Escobar EN
Country: South America / 
Paraguay
Paraguay
Description:
The Tomáraho, a subgroup of the Ishir (Chamacoco) of Paraguay, are one of the few remaining indigenous populations who have managed to keep both their language and spiritual beliefs intact. They have lived for many years in a remote region of the Gran Chaco, having limited contact with European or Latin American cultures. The survival of the Tomáraho has been tenuous at best; at the time of this writing there were only eighty-seven surviving members. Ticio Escobar, who lived extensively among the Tomáraho, draws on his acquired knowledge of Ishir beliefs to confront them with his own Western i... continue
18.
The Dark Side of Skin by Jeferson Tenorio EN
Country: South America / Brazil
Brazil
Description:
Life under Brazil's brutal "cordial racism" comes painfully alive in this novel of fathers and sons. How do you become the protagonist of your own life? For Pedro, it means searching for himself in the objects his father left behind: the layers that make up his life, and that of his parents, and the circumstances, geographies, and wounds that shaped them all. It's an archaeology of affections, but also of life in southern Brazil, where being black on the streets of Porto Alegre manifests violences large and small. Where being a young woman, raised by a single mother, may find you seeking secur... continue
19.
The Enlightenment of Katzuo Nakamatsu by Augusto Higa Oshiro EN
Country: South America / Peru
Peru
Description:
Reminiscent of Kurasawa’s film Ikiru, Enlightenment explores the interior mindscape of a Japanese-Peruvian man and his luminous unraveling Katzuo Nakamatsu is having a recurring dream. He’s strolling down the glinting avenues of Lima, branches crowning overhead, when he hears someone snickering from the shadows. He wanders away in concentric circles, as if along a spider web, and wakes in a sweaty torment. Nakamatsu sleepwalks his way toward sublime disintegration. Katzuo is at sea after being forced out of his job as a literature professor without warning. He retreats into flânerie, musing wi... continue
20.
Tropic Death by Eric Walrond EN
Country: South America / Guyana
Guyana
Description:
Finally available after three decades, a lost classic of the Harlem Renaissance that Langston Hughes acclaimed for its “hard poetic beauty.” Eric Walrond (1898–1966), in his only book, injected a profound Caribbean sensibility into black literature. His work was closest to that of Jean Toomer and Zora Neale Hurston with its striking use of dialect and its insights into the daily lives of the people around him. Growing up in British Guiana, Barbados, and Panama, Walrond first published Tropic Death to great acclaim in 1926. This book of stories viscerally charts the days of men working stone qu... continue