Greetings from the Great Bend Public Library, and Happy Hispanic Heritage Month! In honor of Saturday being the last day of this celebration, which runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight some of the great books we have at the library that are by Hispanic authors and feature their respective cultures.
Firstly, I wanted to highlight a personal favorite author of mine, Silvia Moreno-Garcia. One of her recent works, “Mexican Gothic,” is a historical fiction story with a spooky twist. We follow Noemí Taboada, our heroine, to a mysterious mansion in the Mexican countryside, which she travels to after receiving a distressing letter from her newly-married cousin. When Noemí arrives, she encounters her cousin’s English groom, a man she finds to be both menacing and alluring; his father, the ancient patriarch who is fascinated by Noemí; and the house itself, which begins to give Noemí dreadful nightmares filled with visions of blood and doom. Her only ally in this house full of danger and secrets is the youngest son of the manor, but he seems to know more about the family’s dark past than he will let on. As Noemí digs deeper and unearths stories of violence and madness, she may soon find leaving the manor impossible.
I would be remiss as a librarian if I didn’t mention “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez. The author is credited as one of the founders of the magical realism genre with this book, whose popularity took off in the Latin American literature scene. “One Hundred Years of Solitude” chronicles the Buendía family through multiple generations, starting with the Patriarch José Arcadio Buendía. In this story, José founded the town of Macondo, an isolated utopia that fights against the influences of the outside world as the generations of the family come to pass. Tragedy after tragedy befalls the Buendía family, and they find themselves torn between their isolation and the outside world full of fantastic, scientific advancements and its threats of violence and war.
These are just two examples of fantastic Hispanic authors. If you would like to see a more comprehensive list, check out the front page of our catalog at greatbend.catalog.ckls.org, where you can see more recommendations and where to find them. You can even put what you find on hold right from the catalog!
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Written by Hannah Grippin, the outreach manager at the Great Bend Public Library.
