Collection: Shop Latinx

When Language Broke Open collects the creative offerings of forty-five queer and trans Black writers of Latin American descent who use poetry, prose, and visual art to illustrate Blackness as a geopolitical experience that is always changing. Telling stories of Black Latinidades, this anthology centers the multifaceted realities of the LGBTQ community.

By exploring themes of memory, care, and futurity, these contributions expand understandings of Blackness in Latin America, the Caribbean, and their U.S.-based diasporas. The volume offers up three central questions: How do queer and/or trans Black writers of Latin American descent address memory? What are the textures of caring, being cared for, and accepting care as Black queer and/or trans people of Latin American descent? And how do queer and trans embodiments help us understand and/or question the past and the present, and construct a Black, queer, and trans future?

The works collected in this anthology encompass a multitude of genres--including poetry, autobiography, short stories, diaries, visual art, and a graphic memoir--and feature the voices of established writers alongside emerging voices. Together, the contributors challenge everything we think we know about gender, sexuality, race, and what it means to experience a livable life.

About the story: Kiss of the Spider Woman

Kiss of the Spider Woman is two prisoners, Luis Molina and Valentín Arregui, share a cell in a Buenos Aires prison. The story takes place between September 9, 1975 and October 8, 1975. Molina, an effeminate gay window-dresser, is in jail for "corruption of a minor", while Valentín is a political prisoner who is part of a revolutionary group trying to overthrow the government. The two men, seemingly opposites in every way, form an intimate bond in their cell, and their relationship changes both of them in profound ways. Molina recounts various films he has seen to Valentín in order to help them forget their situation.

What type of book is Kiss of th Spider Woman

The novel's form is unusual in that there is no traditional narrative voice, one of the primary features of fiction. It is written in large part as dialogue, without any indication of who is speaking, except for a dash (-) to show a change of speaker. There are also significant portions of stream-of-conciousness writing. What is not written as dialogue or stream-of-consciousness is written as meta-fictional government documentation. The conversations between the characters, when not focused on the moment at hand, are recountings of films that Molina has seen, which act as a form of escape from their environment. Thus there are a main plot, several subplots, and five additional stories that comprise the novel.

Historical importance of Kiss of the Spider Woman

Puig started Kiss of the Spider Woman in 1974 starting with Molina, who was an experiment in imagining a romantic female. From there the rest of the notes sprouted into the novel. At first the only country that would publish the novel was Spain. Upon publication it was included on a list of novels that could not be consumed by the population of Buenos Aires. Puig feared the publication of the novel would affect his family negatively. Despite this it was entered in the Frankfurt Book Fair. It remained banned until 1983.

Una inspiradora historia de ficción sobre la activista de derechos civiles y líder sindical Dolores Huerta; un álbum ilustrado que nos recuerda que, incluso nuestros héroes más grandes, fueron pequeños.

Su abuelo la llama "Lolita Siete Lenguas", siete lenguas peleando por ser escuchadas. Lola intenta no hacer tanto ruido, pero cuando es testigo de una injusticia en su vecindario, sabe que no puede guardar silencio. Podrá Lola encontrar una forma de usar su voz para protestar y promover un cambio? Sí se puede!

Lola protesta es un álbum ilustrado cálido y divertido, inspirado en la infancia de la líder sindical y activista de derechos civiles Dolores Huerta. Un libro que nos recuerda que, muchas veces, todo lo que necesitamos es una voz valiente que indique el camino.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

A powerful and inspiring imagined story about real-life civil rights activist and labor leader, Dolores Huerta, that reminds us even our biggest heroes started out small.

Her grandpa calls her "Lolita Siete Lenguas"--Little Lola, Seven Tongues, all fighting to be heard.

Lola is trying not to make so much noise, but when she witnesses injustices in her neighborhood, she knows she can't keep quiet. Can Lola find a way to use her voice for change? Sí, se puede!

Inspired by civil rights activist and labor leader, Dolores Huerta, Lola Out Loud is a warm and rollicking picture book that reminds us that sometimes one strong voice is just what we need.

Revered by the likes of Octavio Paz and Roberto Bolano, Alejandra Pizarnik is still a hidden treasure in the U.S. Extracting the Stone of Madness: Poems 1962-1972 comprises all of her middle to late work, as well as a selection of posthumously published verse. Obsessed with themes of solitude, childhood, madness and death, Pizarnik explored the shifting valences of the self and the border between speech and silence. In her own words, she was drawn to "the suffering of Baudelaire, the suicide of Nerval, the premature silence of Rimbaud, the mysterious and fleeting presence of Lautréamont," as well as to the "unparalleled intensity" of Artaud's "physical and moral suffering."

Un libro galardonado del premio honor Pura Belpré, por su edición en inglés, The Coquies Still Sing.
Una selección de los mejores libros ilustrados para niños por el Chicago Public Library
Una selección de Bank Street College of Education Children's Book Committee's Mejores Libros para Niños
Una selección de New York Public Library New Vibrant Voices Titles for Kids: libros nuevos por autores de color

"Este libro es más que hermoso."--Yuyi Morales, homenajeada al Caldecott y creadora de Dreamers, reconocido en la lista de mejores vendidos del New York Times

Los coquíes aún cantan es un libro ilustrado para niños sobre el hogar, la comunidad, y la esperanza, inspirado por la reconstrucción de Puerto Rico luego del Hurricán María en Septiembre 2017. Este hermoso y emotivo libro fue escrito por Karina Nicole González, illustrado por Krystal Quiles, y traducido al español por Amparo Ortiz.
Co-quí, co-quí! Los coquíes le cantan a Elena desde el amado árbol de mango de su familia--sus llamadas son tan conocidas que es como si estuvieran cantando, "Estás en casa, estás a salvo." Pero de repente, su hogar no es tan seguro cuando un huracán atenta con destruir todo lo que Elena conoce.

Con el paso del tiempo, Elena, junto a su comunidad, comienza a reconstruir su hogar, sembrando semillas de esperanza en el camino. Cuando los sonidos de los coquíes regresan gradualmente, reflejan la resiliencia y fuerza de Elena, su familia, y sus compatriotas puertorriqueños.

Si alguna vez sentiste que no podías más, si te rompieron el corazón, si confiaste a ciegas y te apuñalaron por la espalda, si creíste que después del dolor no había nada más, este libro es para ti.
En Valentía II encontramos el reflejo de alguien que supo abrazar el dolor y convertirlo en vuelo, como un colibrí renaciendo después de una noche fría de invierno. Kelbin, una vez más, abre las puertas de su alma para mostrarnos que cada caída no es más que un impulso para ser valientes y continuar.

Winner of the Pura Belpré Illustrator Award
A Kirkus Reviews Best Picture Book

In soaring words and stunning illustrations, Margarita Engle and Rafael López tell the story of Teresa Carreño, a child prodigy who played piano for Abraham Lincoln.

As a little girl, Teresa Carreño loved to let her hands dance across the beautiful keys of the piano. If she felt sad, music cheered her up, and when she was happy, the piano helped her share that joy. Soon she was writing her own songs and performing in grand cathedrals. Then a revolution in Venezuela forced her family to flee to the United States. Teresa felt lonely in this unfamiliar place, where few of the people she met spoke Spanish. Worst of all, there was fighting in her new home, too--the Civil War.

Still, Teresa kept playing, and soon she grew famous as the talented Piano Girl who could play anything from a folk song to a sonata. So famous, in fact, that President Abraham Lincoln wanted her to play at the White House! Yet with the country torn apart by war, could Teresa's music bring comfort to those who needed it most?

From the Newbery Medal-winning author of Last Stop on Market Street comes this moving picture book about the perils of perfectionism.

Lucas goes to the perfect school in the perfect neigborhood. But life at home is not so perfect. His dad's old work truck stalls in front of the school. The electricity is out when he gets home, and he doesn't even have time to show his mom his report (on which he received a perfect score) before she rushes off to her night job.

That night, Lucas dreams of a strange light, which he follows down the fire escape, into the alleyway, clear out of his neighborhood, all the way to the place where the perfect people live. Everything there is more beautiful than he could have imagined. But is it possible things aren't as perfect as they seem?

This lyrical, richly illustrated picture book highlights the beauty to be found in even the humblest of homes and in a family that may not be materially rich but is rich in love.

Del exitoso autor en ventas según el New York Times y ganador del Premio Pulitzer, Junot Díaz, nos llega su primer álbum ilustrado acerca de la magia de los recuerdos y el poder infinito de la imaginación, ahora en español!

Todos los niños en la escuela de Lola venían de otra parte. Era una escuela de lugares lejanos.

Así que cuando la maestra de Lola pide a sus alumnos que hagan un dibujo del lugar del que emigraron sus familias, todos los niños se entusiasman. Todos, menos Lola. Ella no recuerda la Isla: se fue cuando era apenas un bebé. Pero con la ayuda de su familia y de sus amigos, todos ellos con sus recuerdos --felices, maravillosos, tristes, aterradores--, la imaginación de Lola la lleva en un extraordinario viaje de regreso a la Isla. Cuando finalmente se acerca al corazón de la historia de su familia, Lola llega a entender el sentido de las palabras de su abuela: «Que no recuerdes un lugar, no significa que no sea parte de ti .
Espléndidamente ilustrado, y escrito en una bella prosa, Lola es un homenaje a la creatividad, a la diversidad y a la imaginación sin límites, que nos permite conectar con nuestra familia, nuestro pasado y con nosotros mismos.

Restores the region's fraught history of repression and resistance to popular consciousness and connects the United States' interventions and influence to the influx of refugees seeking asylum today.

At the center of the current immigration debate are migrants from Central America fleeing poverty, corruption, and violence in search of refuge in the United States. In Central America's Forgotten History, Aviva Chomsky answers the urgent question "How did we get here?" Centering the centuries-long intertwined histories of US expansion and Indigenous and Central American struggles against inequality and oppression, Chomsky highlights the pernicious cycle of colonial and neocolonial development policies that promote cultures of violence and forgetting without any accountability or restorative reparations.

Focusing on the valiant struggles for social and economic justice in Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Honduras, Chomsky restores these vivid and gripping events to popular consciousness. Tracing the roots of displacement and migration in Central America to the Spanish conquest and bringing us to the present day, she concludes that the more immediate roots of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras lie in the wars and in the US interventions of the 1980s and the peace accords of the 1990s that set the stage for neoliberalism in Central America.

Chomsky also examines how and why histories and memories are suppressed, and the impact of losing historical memory. Only by erasing history can we claim that Central American countries created their own poverty and violence, while the United States' enjoyment and profit from their bananas, coffee, mining, clothing, and export of arms are simply unrelated curiosities.

From an award-winning author and illustrator, a warm, gentle ode to cherished visits from grandparents and the people and places that make us who we are even if we haven't met them yet.

It's been three years since Abuela's last visit, and Dulce revels in every tiny detail--from Abuela's maletas full of candies in crinkly wrappers and gifts from primos to the sweet, earthy smell of Peru that floats out of Abuela's room and down the hall. But Abuela's visit can't last forever, and all too soon she's packing her suitcases again. Then Dulce has an idea: maybe there are things she can gather for her cousins and send with Abuela to remind them of the U.S. relatives they've never met. And despite having to say goodbye, Abuela has one more surprise for Dulce--something to help her remember that home isn't just a place, but the deep-rooted love they share no matter the distance.

Debes saber, desde ya, que soy una mentirosa.

Suelo decir pequeñas mentiras. Diminutas. Insignificantes. Casi no parecen mentiras. Pero lo son.

Ahora disponible en español.

Max Monroe, de 21 años, lo tiene todo: belleza, amigos y una vida esplendorosa llena de aventuras. Con montones de seguidores en Instagram, su existencia perfecta es casi envidiable.

Pero todo es falso.

"Max" es en realidad Kat Sánchez, una adolescente de 17 años, tranquila y sarcástica, que vive en la monótona Bakersfield, en California. Su existencia no tiene nada de glamurosa: suburbios, fiestas caseras fallidas, una familia fracturada, un curso escolar de mierda y la incomodidad de lidiar con el amor de su mejor amigo, Hari, que ella no corresponde.

Si bien la vida de Kat dista mucho de ser perfecta, tiene éxito como Max: ofrece consejos, comparte hermosas fotos, se relaciona con influencers famosos e incluso se hace amiga de una seguidora llamada Elena. Cuanto más se acercan Elena y "Max", mediante mensajes de texto, fotos e incluso llamadas, más siente Kat que debe mantener la fachada.

Pero cuando una de las publicaciones de Max se vuelve ultraviral y la persona a quien Kat ha estado robándole las fotos tiene conocimiento de esta, todo su mundo se derrumba. Kat tiene que encontrar la manera de salir de la enorme red de mentiras que ha tejido, sin herir a las personas a quienes ama.

Pero tal vez sea demasiado tarde.

ELOGIOS PARA NO FILTER AND OTHER LIES EN INGLÉS:
Un mejor libro para adolescentes de Seventeen
Un mejor libro nuevo para adolescentes de POPSUGAR
Un libro más esperado de Nerdist
Una selección estándar de oro del Junior Library Guild
* "Ultrainteligente."--Publishers Weekly
"Hace pensar."--POPSUGAR
"Impresionante."--Nerdist
"Verdaderamente auténtica."--YA Books Central
"Agridulce y complicado."--Kirkus Reviews
"Cautivador y desgarrador."--Shelf Awareness

WINNER, 2020 Whiting Award in Poetry!

Diannely Antigua's debut collection Ugly Music is a cacophonous symphony of reality, dream, trauma, and obsession. It reaches into the corners of love and loss where survival and surrender are blurred. The poems span a traumatic early childhood, a religious adolescence, and later a womanhood that grapples with learning how to create an identity informed by, yet in spite of, those challenges. What follows is an exquisitely vulgar voice, unafraid to draw attention to the distasteful, to speak a truth created by a collage of song and confession, diary and praise. It is an account of observation and dissociation, the danger of simultaneously being inside and outside the experiences that mold a life. Ugly Music emerges as a story of witness, a realization that even the strangest things exist on earth and deserve to live.

Sin amargura ni sentimentalismo, Francisco Jiménez termina de contar la historia de su juventud en esta conmovedora secuela a Cajas de cartón.
At the age of fourteen, Francisco Jimenez, together with his older brother Roberto and his mother, are caught by la migra. Forced to leave their home, the entire family travels all night for twenty hours by bus, arriving at the U.S. and Mexican border in Nogales, Arizona. In the months and years that follow, Francisco, his mother and father, and his seven brothers and sister not only struggle to keep their family together, but also face crushing poverty, long hours of labor, and blatant prejudice. How they sustain their hope, their goodheartedness, and tenacity is revealed in this moving sequel to The Circuit. Without bitterness or sentimentality, Francisco Jimnez finishes telling the story of his youth.

A Lil' Libros Bilingual Biography

Known for her powerful voice and eccentric style, Celia Cruz has become one of the most popular singers in the world. In this book you'll introduce little ones to her remarkable life. Known as the "Queen of Salsa", the incomparable music of Celia Cruz continues to be sugar to our ears.

Unable to find bilingual first concept books she could enjoy reading to her baby, Patty Rodriguez came up with the idea behind Lil' Libros.

Patty and her work have been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, CNN Latino, Latina Magazine, Cosmopolitan, People En Espanol, Cosmo Latina, and American Latino TV, to name a few. She is currently Sr. Producer for On Air With Ryan SeacrestiHeartMedia, jewelry designer for MALA by Patty Rodriguez, and creator of Manolos And Tacos.

Ariana Stein, a graduate from California State University, Dominguez Hills, has a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration. Ariana spent the first eight years of her professional career in the corporate world. Her life changed with the birth of her baby boy. She immediately realized that bilingualism played a very important role in his future, as well as the future of other children.

In Stella Díaz Dreams Big, by award-winning author and illustrator Angela Dominguez, how will Stella fare when the waters get rough?

Stella is happy as a clam in fourth grade. She's the president of the Sea Musketeers conservation club, she starts taking swim lessons, and she joins a new art club at school. But as her schedule fills up, school gets harder, too. Suddenly the tides have turned, and she is way too busy!

Stella will be in an ocean of trouble if she can't keep her head above water. But with her trusty Sea Musketeers by her side, she hopes to make her big dreams come true!

Based on the author's experiences growing up Mexican-American, this infectiously charming character comes to life through relatable storytelling including simple Spanish vocabulary and adorable black-and-white art.