Pedro Páramo is the first novel by Mexican author Juan Rulfo, first published in 1955 by Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Translated into more than 35 languages, this book is part of the revolutionary novel genre. Given the use of magical realism, it’s considered one of the pioneers of the Latin American boom and one of the essential books in Spanish literature. It’s currently included in the list of the top 100 best Spanish novels of the 20th century by Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

 

This is a 1965 novel written by Arthur Hailey. It’s the story of an independent New Orleans hotel, St. Gregory, and how its management struggles to regain profitability and avoid a merger with the O’Keefe hotel chain.

Translated into more than 23 languages, it has brought Hailey international recognition, becoming one of the great bestsellers of the 1960s.  

 

Aura is a gothic-inspired fantasy written by Panamanian-born Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes, winner of the Cervantes Prize. The story is set in 1962 in Mexico City. 

Translated into more than 22 languages, it’s considered one of the most important books by this novelist and one of the best Mexican novels of the 20th century.

 

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is the first novel by Junot Díaz, who was born in the Dominican Republic and brought up in the United States. It won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award. It has also been considered the best novel of 2007 by Time and New York Magazine. 

Translated into more than 21 languages, it addresses issues of identity, racism, the times of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, and, especially, the lives of second-generation immigrants in the U.S. 

 

Reasons of State is a book of essays by Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier, published in 1976. Translated into more than 16 languages, this text presents some of the most important topics in any analysis of Latin American culture: the baroque; the idea of marvelous reality; the facing a reality that continually demands that one surpass oneself; and the generation of artists and writers in search of a continental identity, beyond race and rugged nature.

 

A Brief History of Seven Killings is a choral novel by Marlon James, published in 2014 and translated into over 16 languages.

The book is structured around the testimonials of 13 fictional characters who remember, recreate, lie, meditate, lament or celebrate, weaving a web of intersecting narratives. The plot begins on December 3, 1976, two days before the Smile Jamaica concert, with Bob Marley’s performance. That afternoon, while taking advantage of a band rehearsal, seven gunmen attacked the singer’s house, wounding him, his wife, and his manager. This electrifying choral tragedy recreates the life and tribulations of the assailants, transporting us to the heart of the dangerous streets of Kingston, alongside the shooters, drug dealers, lovers, CIA agents, and even the occasional ghost that make up much of the Jamaican capital’s human landscape.

 

 

This book by José León Sánchez retells the inhumane conditions of the San Lucas prison, located on a Costa Rica island. A man narrates a first-person story of how he’s unfairly accused of murder and sentenced to forced labor, how he’s taken to the San Lucas prison, his stay in the dreaded place, the humiliations he’s subjected to, and the chronic hunger depicted on each prisoner’s face. 

Published in 1963, it has been translated into over 16 languages.

 

Green Prison is a novel written by Honduran author Ramón Amaya Amador. It is a work of socialist realism that describes the living conditions in the banana plantations of the Standard Fruit Company in northern Honduras during the dictatorship of Tiburcio Carías Andino. Published in 1950, it has been translated into more than 14 languages.