“Below is a list of books I have enjoyed reading, mostly on Latino literature and particularly Latino fiction. This list is not comprehensive by any means, and if your favorite book is not here it may just mean I have not found the time to read it or to list it. As a writer, I have learned my craft by reading others and by trying to understand the work of good writers. So I want to share the books I found valuable, for one reason or another. This is my effort to create a list of eclectic (but high quality) selections on Latino literature and Latino fiction that might appeal to those who love to read. I don’t claim that this list contains the ‘best’ writers or the ‘most important’ books about Latino literature. It is simply my list. I hope over time that this list will grow to include a plurality of literary voices.”   ---Sergio Troncoso

Latino Literature, Latino Fiction, Latino Nonfiction

To reach this page, go to LiteraryLatino.com and LatinoFiction.com. All proceeds from this website will be donated to HRH Care (Hudson River HealthCare), which provides free healthcare to migrant farmworkers in New York’s Hudson Valley.

Books for Children and Young Adults

Rudolfo Anaya, The Farolitos of Christmas and Farolitos for Abuelo

Rebecca Balcárcel, The Other Side of Happy

David Bowles, They Call Me Güero: A Border Kid's Poems

Kathleen Contreras, Braids/Trencitas

Sarah Cortez (editor), You Don’t Have a Clue: Latino Mystery Stories for Teens

Rubén Degollado, Throw: A Novel

Matt De La Peña, Last Stop on Market Street

Tomie DePaola, The Night of Las Posadas

Margarita Engle, The Lightning Dreamer: Cuba’s Greatest Abolitionist

Carmen Lomas Garza, In My Family: En Mi Familia

Xavier Garza, Maximilian & the Bingo Rematch: A Lucha Libre Sequel

Ricky González, María Mendoza, Wendy Morán et al, Wiley's Way/El Camino de Wiley

Joe Hayes, La Llorona: The Weeping Woman and The Day It Snowed Tortillas: El Dia Que Nevaron Tortillas

Brendan January, Hernán Cortés

Francisco Jiménez, The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child

Joe Jiménez, Bloodline

Diana Lopez, Confetti Girl

Lorraine M. López, Call Me Henri

Gerald McDermott, Arrow to the Sun and Musicians of the Sun

Albert Marrin, Aztecs and Spaniards

Victor Martinez, Parrot in the Oven

Antony Mason, Ancient Civilizations of The Americas

Meg Medina, Merci Suárez Changes Gears

Lyn Miller-Lachmann (editor), Once Upon a Cuento

Pat Mora, Tomás and the Library Lady

Yuyi Morales, Just a Minute: Trickster Tale and Counting Book

Pam Muñoz Ryan, Esperanza Rising and Echo

Isabel Quintero, Gabi, A Girl in Pieces

David Rice, Crazy Loco

Benjamin Sáenz, A Gift from Papá Diego, Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood, and Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Jon Scieszka, Me Oh Maya!

Gary Soto, The Old Man and His Door and Buried Onions

María Cristina Urrutia, Cinco de Mayo: Yesterday and Today

Natasha Wing, Jalapeño Bagels

Nonfiction

Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza

Jose Antonio Burciaga, Weedee Peepoo: Essays

Francisco Cantú, The Line Becomes a River

Alfredo Corchado, Homelands

Sarah Cortez and Sergio Troncoso (editors), Our Lost Border: Essays on Life amid the Narco-Violence

Mario T. García, Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans of El Paso, 1880-1920

Gabriel García Márquez, Living to Tell the Tale

Dagoberto Gilb, Gritos

Rigoberto Gonzalez, Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa

Reyna Grande, The Distance Between Us: A Memoir

Stephanie Elizondo Griest, All the Agents and Saints

Elva Treviño Hart, Barefoot Heart

Friedrich Katz, The Life and Times of Pancho Villa

Peter Kuper, Diario de Oaxaca

Domingo Martinez, The Boy Kings of Texas and My Heart Is a Broken Compass

Monica Muñoz Martinez, The Injustice Never Leaves You

C. M. Mayo, Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles Through Baja California, the Other Mexico

Pat Mora, House of Houses

Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude

Raquel Z. Rivera, New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone

José Antonio Rodríguez, House Built on Ashes

Richard Rodríguez, Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodríguez and Brown: The Last Discovery of America

David Dorado Romo, Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juárez: 1893-1923

Brando Skyhorse, Take This Man: A Memoir

Octavio Solis, Retablos: Stories From a Life Lived Along the Border

Ilan Stavans, On Borrowed Words and Dictionary Days

Ilan Stavans, Harold Augenbraum (editors), Encyclopedia Latina: History, Culture, and Society in the United States

Jacobo Timerman, Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number

Sergio Troncoso, Crossing Borders: Personal Essays

Luis Alberto Urrea, The Devil's Highway

John Womack, Zapata and the Mexican Revolution

Poetry

Rosa Alcalá, MyOTHER TONGUE

Francisco Aragón, Puerta Del Sol

Francisco Aragón (editor), The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry

Richard Blanco, Directions to the Beach of the Dead

David Bowles (translator), Flower, Song, Dance: Aztec and Mayan Poetry

Eduardo Corral, Slow Lightning and Guillotine: Poems

David Dominguez, Work Done Right and The Ghost of Cesar Chavez

Martín Espada, The Trouble Ball: Poems

Luis H. Francia, Tattered Boat

Carmen Giménez Smith, Odalisque in Pieces and Milk and Filth

Aracelis Girmay, Teeth and Kingdom Animalia

Ray González, Consideration of the Guitar

Rigoberto González, So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water Until It Breaks and Unpeopled Eden

Juan Felipe Herrera, Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems

Javier O. Huerta, Some Clarifications y otros poemas

Ada Limón, Lucky Wreck and Bright Dead Things: Poems

Sheryl Luna, Pity the Drowned Horses

María Meléndez, How Long She'll Last in This World

Lupe Mendez, Why I Am Like Tequila

Emmy Pérez, Solstice

Sasha Pimentel, Insides She Swallowed and For Want of Water and Other Poems

José Antonio Rodríguez, The Shallow End of Sleep

Renato Rosaldo, Diego Luna’s Insider Tips

Vanessa Angélica Villarreal, Beast Meridian

Fiction

Julia Alvarez, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies

Rudolfo Anaya, Bless Me, Ultima

Mariano Azuela, Los de Abajo

Roberto Bolaño, 2666

David Bowles, Feathered Serpent, Dark Heart of Sky: Myths of Mexico

Ana Castillo, The Guardians

Daniel Chacón, Hotel Juarez: Stories, Rooms and Loops

Denise Chávez, Face of an Angel

John S. Christie and José B. Gonzalez (editors), Latino Boom: An Anthology of U. S. Latino Literature

Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories, and Caramelo

Sarah Cortez and Liz Martinez (editors), Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery

Angie Cruz, Let It Rain Coffee

Marcia Hatfield Daudistel (editor), Literary El Paso

Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and This Is How You Lose Her

Ernesto Galarza, Barrio Boy

Diana Garcia, Frances Payne Adler, and Debra Busman (editors), Fire and Ink: An Anthology of Social Action Writing

Dagoberto Gilb, The Magic of Blood, Woodcuts of Women, and Hecho en Tejas: An Anthology of Texas Mexican Literature (editor)

Francisco Goldman, The Ordinary Seaman and Say Her Name

Rigoberto González (editor), Camino del Sol: Fifteen Years of Latina and Latino Writing

Christine Granados, Brides and Sinners in El Chuco

Tim Z. Hernandez, Mañana Means Heaven

Oscar Hijuelos, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love

Rolando Hinojosa, The Useless Servants and Becky and Her Friends

Arturo Islas, The Rain God and Migrant Souls

Mary Helen Lagasse, The Fifth Sun

Lorraine López, Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories

Valeria Luiselli, Faces in the Crowd

Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera

Demetria Martínez, Mother Tongue

  1. C.M. Mayo, Sky Over El Nido

Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Mexican Gothic

Manuel Muñoz, Zigzagger

Daniel Peña, Bang

Ernesto Quiñonez, Bodega Dreams and Chango's Fire

Linda Rodriguez, Every Last Secret

Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo y El Llano en llamas

Benjamin Sáenz, The House of Forgetting, The Inexplicable Logic of My Life, and Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club

José Skinner, Flight and Other Stories and The Tombstone Race: Stories

Brando Skyhorse, The Madonnas of Echo Park

Ilan Stavans (editor), New World: Young Latino Writers

Sergio Troncoso, The Last Tortilla and Other Stories, The Nature of Truth, From This Wicked Patch of Dust, and A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son

Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird's Daughter and The Water Museum: Stories

Kirstin Valdez Quade, Night at the Fiestas: Stories

José Antonio Villarreal, Pocho

Helena María Viramontes, The Moths and Other Stories and Under the Feet of Jesus

Richard Yañez, El Paso del Norte: Stories on the Border