Among the best fiction from Latin America this year, Dead Girls by Argentinean Selva Almada (Charco Press) deserves a special mention as being one of the most powerful and necessary. This is an incisive book that deals head-on with the tragedy of femicides in Latin American by recounting the killings of three teenage girls in the interior of Argentina in the 1980s.

The Book of Emma Reyes, by Colombian artist and writer Emma Reyes (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), is another highlight. An instant classic, the book includes 23 beautifully written letters by the author, who recounts the moving story of a Colombian girl trying to survive extreme poverty, violence, class prejudice and years of abuse in a exploitative and cruel Catholic convent.