English books from South America
Recommended English books (335)
Travel the world without leaving your chair.
If you speak English here are some English books from South America for the next part of the "Read Around The World Challenge".
201.
Space Invaders : A Novel by Nona Fernández EN
Country: South America / 
Chile
Chile
Description:
A dreamlike evocation of a generation that grew up in the shadow of a dictatorship in 1980s Chile Space Invaders is the story of a group of childhood friends who, in adulthood, are preoccupied by uneasy memories and visions of their classmate Estrella González Jepsen. In their dreams, they catch glimpses of Estrella’s braids, hear echoes of her voice, and read old letters that eventually, mysteriously, stopped arriving. They recall regimented school assemblies, nationalistic class performances, and a trip to the beach. Soon it becomes clear that Estrella’s father was a ranking government offic... continue
202.
Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel García Márquez EN
Country: South America / Chile
Chile
Description:
In Barcelona, an aging Brazilian prostitute trains her dog to weep at the grave she has chosen for herself. In Vienna, a woman parlays her gift for seeing the future into a fortunetelling position with a wealthy family. In Geneva, an ambulance driver and his wife take in the lonely, apparently dying ex-President of a Caribbean country, only to discover that his political ambition is very much intact. In these twelve masterly stories about the lives of Latin Americans in Europe, García Márquez conveys the peculiar amalgam of melancholy, tenacity, sorrow, and aspiration that is the émigré experi... continue
203.
Country: South America / 
Ecuador
Ecuador
Description:
A uniquely dark, coming-of-age novel rife with urban magical realism, love, and redemption, from the author of Bodega Dreams When Julio, a teenager living in Spanish Harlem, hears that Taina, a pregnant fifteen-year-old from his high school claims to be a virgin, he decides to believe her. Julio has a history of strange visions and his blind and unrequited love for Taina will unleash a whirlpool of emotions that will bring him to question his hard-working Puerto Rican mother and his communist Ecuadorian father, his beliefs and even the building blocks of modern science (after seeing the concep... continue
204.
Tales From the Town of Widows by James Canon EN
Country: South America / 
Colombia
Colombia
Description:
From a new literary star comes a beautifully crafted story about a group of women in a Colombian village who find their lives changed while their husbands and sons are away fighting a deadly civil war. The women of Mariquita - made widows when their men are swept away by the army or rebel forces - learn hard lessons about love and survival. Forced to grow in extraordinary ways, they challenge the tenets of male-dominated society, discover power with all its pitfalls and strive to create an entirely new social order, an all-female utopia. Their narrative is punctuated by short vignettes of the ... continue
205.
Talking to Ourselves by Andrés Neuman EN
Country: South America / 
Argentina
Argentina
Description:
One trip. Two love stories. Three voices. Sooner or later, we all face loss. Ten-year old Lito is almost sure that he can change the weather, if only he concentrates very hard. His father Mario, who is seriously ill, is anxious to create a life-long memory for the unsuspecting Lito and takes him on a road-trip in a truck called Pedro. Together, father and son embark on a journey through strange landscapes which blur the borders of the Spanish-speaking world. In the meantime, Lito's mother Elena tries to find solace in books - and soon undertakes a precarious adventure of her own that will chal... continue
206.
Ten Women by Marcela Serrano EN
Country: South America / Chile
Chile
Description:
Award-winning Chilean author Marcela Serrano weaves a beautiful story about the universal connections between women. For nine Chilean women, life couldn't be more different. There is the teenage computer whiz confronting her sexual identity. A middle-aged recluse who prefers the company of her dog over that of most humans. A housekeeper. A celebrity television personality. A woman confronting the loneliness of old age. Of disparate ages and races, these women represent the variety of cultural and social groups that Chile comprises. On the surface, they seem to have nothing in common...except f... continue
207.
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica EN
Country: South America / Argentina
Argentina
Description:
Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans—though no one calls them that anymore. His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the “Transition.” Now, eating human meat—“special meat”—is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing. Then one day he’s given a gift: a live specimen of the finest q... continue
208.
The Adventures of China Iron by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, Fiona J. Mackintosh EN
Country: South America / Argentina
Argentina
Description:
China Iron reimagines Argentina's macho national origin myth from a female perspective, in a joyful, hallucinatory journey across the pampas of 19th century.
209.
The Air You Breathe : A Novel by Frances de Pontes Peebles EN
Country: South America / 
Brazil
Brazil
Description:
"[A] glorious, glittery saga of friendship and loss... I read The Air You Breathe in two nights. (One might say I inhaled it.)." --NPR "Echoes of Elena Ferrante resound in this sumptuous saga."--O, The Oprah Magazine "Enveloping...Peebles understands the shifting currents of female friendship, and she writes so vividly about samba that you close the book certain its heroine's voices must exist beyond the page." -People The story of an intense female friendship fueled by affection, envy and pride--and each woman's fear that she would be nothing without the other. Some friendships, like romance,... continue
210.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho EN
Country: South America / Brazil
Brazil
Description:
"My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky." Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams." Every few decades a book is published that changes the lives of its readers forever. The Alchemist is such a book. With over a million and a half copies sold around the world, The Alchemist has already established itself as a modern classic, universally admired. Paulo Coelho's charming fable, now available in English ... continue