GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
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Letters From Latin America: July 21, 2022
New titles from across the continent: fiction by Mexican Juan Pablo Villalobos and Peruvian Katya Adaui and poetry collections by Chilean Veronica Zondek, Peruvian Julia Wong Kcomt and Mexican Adriana Diaz Enciso
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production whose design and cartoonish acting overwhelms the close scrutiny of characters
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys the raucous familiarity of a traditional topsy-turvy pantomime
RON JACOBS introduces the latest novel by the best writer of US working-class fiction writing today
HENRY BELL is fascinated by the underlying curiosities and contradictions of one of the great poets of the Mediterranean
DAVID RENTON recommends a books that explores the ways in which disabled people are made to feel both of and not part of this world
INVASION of the Spirit People (And Other Stories, £11.99) is Juan Pablo Villalobos sixth novel and one of his most compelling.
The story set in unnamed city where migrants battle against a worrying rise of neofascism, right-wing nationalism and societal paranoias about foreigners.
The main character, a middle-aged man “from the Southern Cone” called Gaston who is best friends with Max, an immigrant who runs a shabby restaurant in the city, and Pol, Max’s son, a young biologist sent to the tundra to research micro-organisms capable of surviving in extreme conditions.
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A novel by Argentinian Jorge Consiglio, a personal dictionary by Uruguayan Ida Vitale, and poetry by Mexican Homero Aridjis
Travelogue/reportage by Argentinean Maria Sonia Cristoff, and poetry by Peruvian Gaston Fernandez and Puerto Rican Cristina Perez Diaz
An outstanding novel by Chilean writer and activist Pedro Lemebel, a poetry pamphlet by Venezuelan Natasha Tiniacos, and a children’s book of haikus singing the beauty of Cuba
LEO BOIX reviews Cuban poet Carlos Pintado; Mexican poet Diana Garza Islas; Mexican American writer and critic Rigoberto Gonzalez; and Brazilian poet Haroldo de Campos