Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
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Letters from Latin America Leo Boix: September 20, 2023
Reviews of a book of fiction by Colombian writer Margarita Garcia Robayo, a nouvelle by Argentinean author Sara Gallardo and a poetry collection by Argentinean-Spanish poet, novelist and musician Mariano Peyrou
(Left) Margarita Garcia Robayo
[Kaloian-Ministerio de Cultura de la Nacion Argentina/CC]
SIMON DUFF relishes the cross contamination of Damien Hirst’s greatest hits by street artists from France and the US
In view of the grooming gangs inquiry, SIMON PARSONS feels the relevance of this powerful examination of trauma suffered at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre
JOHN GREEN doubts the motivations of a US war photographer who never questions why, or for whom, she is producing images of imperialist conflict
MARIA DUARTE reviews Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Hedda, The Mastermind, and Regretting You
TONY CONWAY welcomes a thrilling and concise history of Hope not Hate, that is also a manual full of tactical advice
PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK
THE main protagonist in Margarita Garcia Robayo’s fast-paced novel The Delivery (Charco Press, £11.99) is a young Colombian woman writer living in Buenos Aires who often wears a T-shirt with the words “Rabid Fox” on it.
This is quite telling for a character who enjoys looking at half-finished and empty buildings, is despised by most of her neighbours for being “weird” and who thinks that families “are ambushes” and “flammable places.”
She will suddenly receive an enormous package from her sister that will eventually disrupt her daily life and will make a “fissure” in the real world. Robayo masterfully constructs a story of family ghosts and memories that put into question what it means to leave behind a country, family and friends for a new place.
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A ghost story by Mexican Ave Barrera, a Surrealist poetry collection by Peruvian Cesar Moro, and a manifesto-poem on women’s labour and capitalist havoc by Peruvian Valeria Roman Marroquin
A novel by Argentinian Jorge Consiglio, a personal dictionary by Uruguayan Ida Vitale, and poetry by Mexican Homero Aridjis
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 selects the best books of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction written by Latinx and Latin American authors published this year