April 2024 Latinx Releases

 

On Sale April 2

 

The Black Girl Survives in This One: Horror Stories edited by Desiree S. Evans and Saraciea J. Fennell | YOUNG ADULT

A YA anthology of horror stories centering Black girls who battle monsters, both human and supernatural, and who survive to the end.

Be warned, dear reader: The Black girls survive in this one.

Celebrating a new generation of bestselling and acclaimed Black writers, The Black Girl Survives in This One makes space for Black girls in horror. Fifteen chilling and thought-provoking stories place Black girls front and center as heroes and survivors who slay monsters, battle spirits, and face down death. Prepare to be terrified and left breathless by the pieces in this anthology.

The bestselling and acclaimed authors include Erin E. Adams, Monica Brashears, Charlotte Nicole Davis, Desiree S. Evans, Saraciea J. Fennell, Zakiya Dalila Harris, Daka Hermon, Justina Ireland, L.L. McKinney, Brittney Morris, Maika & Maritza Moulite, Eden Royce, and Vincent Tirado. The foreword is by Tananarive Due.

 

The Blue Mimes by Sara Daniele Rivera| POETRY

Sara Daniele Rivera's award-winning debut is a collection of sprawling elegy in the face of catastrophic grief, both personal and public. From the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election through the COVID-19 pandemic, these poems memorialize lost loved ones and meditate on the not-yet gone--all while the wider-world loses its sense of connection, safety, and assurance. In those years of mourning, The Blue Mimes is a book of grounding and heartening resolve, even and especially in the states of uncertainty that define the human condition.

Rivera's poems travel between Albuquerque, Lima, and Havana, deserts and coastlines and cities, Spanish and English--between modes of language and culture that shape the contours of memory and expose the fault lines of the self. In those inevitable fractures, with honest, off-kilter precision, Rivera vividly renders the ways in which the bereft become approximations of themselves as a means of survival, mimicking the stilted actions of the people they once were. Where speech is not enough, this astonishing collection finds a radical practice in continued searching, endurance without promise--the rifts in communion and incomplete pictures that afford the possibility to heal.

 

The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez| ADULT FICTION

Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories, doesn't want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories--literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her.

Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas and soon begin to defy their author: they talk back to her and talk to one another behind her back, rewriting and revising themselves. Filomena, a local woman hired as the groundskeeper, becomes a sympathetic listener to the secret tales unspooled by Alma's characters. Among them, Bienvenida, dictator Rafael Trujillo's abandoned wife who was erased from the official history, and Manuel Cruz, a doctor who fought in the Dominican underground and escaped to the United States.

The Cemetery of Untold Stories asks: Whose stories get to be told, and whose buried? Finally, Alma finds the meaning she and her characters yearn for in the everlasting vitality of stories. Julia Alvarez reminds us that the stories of our lives are never truly finished, even at the end.

 

These Hollowed Bones by Amelia Díaz Ettinger| POETRY

In These Hollowed Bones, birds are the conduit for conversations of internal emotions and the natural world. This collection ties together the themes of loss, marriage, and ecology, topics that are at once personal and universal. The voices contained within these poems speak of the isolation felt by both avian and human due to migration and loss of habitat, loss of home. Nature and bird lovers will find solace and self-recognition within these pages.

 

The House on Biscayne Bay by Chanel Cleeton |ADULT FICTION

As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide in New York Times bestselling author Chanel Cleeton's atmospheric new novel.

With the Great War finally behind them, many Americans flock to South Florida with their sights set on making a fortune. When wealthy industrialist Robert Barnes and his wife, Anna, build Marbrisa, a glamorous estate on Biscayne Bay, they become the toast of the newly burgeoning society. Anna and Robert appear to have it all, but in a town like Miami, appearances can be deceiving, and one scandal can change everything.

Years later following the tragic death of her parents in Havana, Carmen Acosta journeys to Marbrisa, the grand home of her estranged older sister, Carolina, and her husband, Asher Wyatt. On the surface, the gilded estate looks like paradise, but Carmen quickly learns that nothing at Marbrisa is as it seems. The house has a treacherous legacy, and Carmen's own life is soon in jeopardy . . . unless she can unravel the secrets buried beneath the mansion's facade and stop history from repeating itself.

 

Cross-Stitch by Jazmina Barrera |Translated by Christina Macsweeney | ADULT FICTION

It was meant to be the trip of a lifetime. Mila, Citlali, and Dalia, childhood friends now college aged, leave Mexico City for the London of The Clash and the Paris of Courbet. They anticipate the cafés and crushes, but not the early signs that they are each steadily, inevitably changing.

That feels like forever ago. Mila, now a writer and a new mother, has just published a book on needlecraft--an art form so long dismissed as "women's work." But after learning Citlali has drowned, Mila begins to sift through her old scrapbooks, reflecting on their shared youth for the first time as a new wife and mother. What has come of all the nights the three friends spent embroidering together in silence? Did she miss the signs that Citlali needed help?

 

Cruzita and the Mariacheros by Ashley Granillo | MIDDLE GRADE

Cruzita is going to be a pop star. All she has to do is win a singing contest at her favorite theme park and get famous. But she can't go to the theme park this summer. Instead, she has to help out at her family's bakery, which has been struggling ever since Tío Chuy died. Cruzita's great-uncle poured his heart into the bakery--the family legacy--and now that he's gone, nothing is the same.

When Cruzita's not rolling uneven tortillas or trying to salvage rock-hard conchas, she has to take mariachi lessons, even though she doesn't know how to play her great-grandpa's violin and she's not fluent in Spanish. At first, she's convinced her whole summer will be a disaster. But as she discovers the heart and soul of mariachi music, she realizes that there's more than one way to be a star―and more than one way to carry on a legacy.

 

Our World: Colombia by Alexandra Alessandri | Illustrated by Manu Montoya | PICTURE BOOK

¡Hola! Come along for a day of exploring the sights and sounds of Colombia from the farm to the city. Join Bebé and Perrito as they snack on arepa con chocolate, visit the market, dance cumbia, and count whales in the waves. Colombian author Alexandra Alessandri and illustrator Manu Montoya draw on their personal experiences to create this vibrant board book as part of the Our World series for very young readers.

 

Sing It Like Celia by Mónica Mancillas |MIDDLE GRADE

Twelve-year-old Salva Sanchez has always been a fan of Celia Cruz, also known as "the queen of salsa." Her love of Celia stems from her mother, who leaves Salva without explanation one awful day. Now Salva is stuck with her investigative journalist father in an RV campground. In the middle of nowhere.

As Salva acclimates to her new environment and desperately tries to figure out why her mother left, she befriends a posse of campground kids who have started a band. When the kids discover that Salva has an amazing singing voice, they convince her to join their group. Soon, Salva learns how to find her voice--and herself--with the help of her newfound friends, her dad, and the one and only Celia Cruz.

 

Ultraviolet by Aida Salazar | MIDDLE GRADE

For Elio Solis, eighth grade fizzes with change--His body teeming with hormones. His feelings that flow like lava. His relationship with Pops, who's always telling him to man up, the Solis way. And especially Camelia, his first girlfriend.

But then, betrayal and heartbreak send Elio spiraling toward revenge, a fight to prove his manhood, and defend Camelia's honor. He doesn't anticipate the dire consequences--or that Camelia's not looking for a savior.

Hilarious, heartwarming, and highly relatable, Ultraviolet digs deep into themes of consent, puberty, masculinity, and the emotional lives of boys, as it challenges stereotypes and offers another way to be in the world.

 

You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World edited by Ada Limón | POETRY

For many years, "nature poetry" has evoked images of Romantic poets standing on mountain tops. But our poetic landscape has changed dramatically, and so has our planet. Edited and introduced by the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States, Ada Limón, this book challenges what we think we know about "nature poetry," illuminating the myriad ways our landscapes--both literal and literary--are changing.You Are Here features fifty previously unpublished poems from some of the nation's most accomplished poets, including Joy Harjo, Diane Seuss, Rigoberto González, Jericho Brown, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Paul Tran, and more. Each poem engages with its author's local landscape--be it the breathtaking variety of flora in a national park, or a lone tree flowering persistently by a bus stop--offering an intimate model of how we relate to the world around us and a beautifully diverse range of voices from across the United States.Joyful and provocative, wondrous and urgent, this singular collection of poems offers a lyrical reimagining of what "nature" and "poetry" are today, inviting readers to experience both anew.

 

On Sale April 9

 

City Girls by Loretta Lopez| MIDDLE GRADE

What Elisa, Lucia, and Alice see-and judge-of each other from the outside is drastically different from how each girl feels inside. They attend the same classes in the same New York City middle school, but no one knows that Elisa is trying to navigate the bewildering asylum process having just arrived from El Salvador; or that Lucia, who also speaks Spanish and brims with self-confidence, is caught in the middle of her parents' heartbreaking divorce; or that Alice, who appears to be a rebel in combat boots, carries the burden of her mother's progressing cancer.

Narrated by each girl in alternating chapters, City Girls captures the vulnerability of being a middle schooler and the relief and joy of finding friendship where you least expect it.

 

Canto Contigo by Jonny Garza Villa |YOUNG ADULT

In a twenty-four-hour span, Rafael Alvarez led North Amistad High School's Mariachi Alma de la Frontera to their eleventh consecutive first-place win in the Mariachi Extravaganza de Nacional; and met, made out with, and almost hooked up with one of the cutest guys he's ever met.

Now eight months later, Rafie's ready for one final win. What he didn't plan for is his family moving to San Antonio before his senior year, forcing him to leave behind his group while dealing with the loss of the most important person in his life--his beloved abuelo. Another hitch in his plan: The Selena Quintanilla-Perez Academy's Mariachi Todos Colores already has a lead vocalist, Rey Chavez--the boy Rafie made out with--who now stands between him winning and being the great Mariachi Rafie's abuelo always believed him to be. Despite their newfound rivalry for center stage, Rafie can't squash his feelings for Rey. Now he must decide between the people he's known his entire life or the one just starting to get to know the real him.

 

Bones Worth Breaking: A Memoir by David Martinez |ADULT NONFICTION

Nobody around David Martinez saw how quickly he was breaking apart except for his younger brother, Mike. They stood out in Idaho: mixed-race in a Mormon community that, in the years before David's birth, considered Black people ineligible for salvation. The Martinez brothers were raised to be "good boys," definitely not to get high, skateboard all night, or get arrested, all of which they did with zeal. Then their paths diverged. David went on a two-year mission trip to Brazil like his father before him, and Mike stayed in the States, finding himself in and out of prison. When David returned, in the middle of the still-unnamed opioid epidemic, things had irrevocably changed, and in 2021, Mike unexpectedly died in prison.

Martinez writes with a serrated edge, as viscerally felt as an exposed nerve, and transforms from a stoic boy constantly seeking escape to a vulnerable man eager to contextualize the legacies and losses that have shaped his life. With a wild, ragged velocity--flipping and soaring like a pro skater--Martinez defies a linear telling of his life and tackles topics from abuse and racism to writing and capturing the meaning of the specific nostalgia of saudade.

 

You by Rosa Alcalá | POETRY

Rosa Alcalá choreographs language to understand the body as it "gathers itself over time to become whole," recovering the speaker's intuition while unraveling memory to pinpoint the aches, anxieties, and lessons of a woman's survival. Ruminating on daughterhood, mothering, and the body's cumulative wisdom, YOU traces a jagged line through fears and joys both past and present.

 

I’ll Give You a Reason by Annell López |SHORT STORIES

The vibrant stories in I'll Give You a Reason explore race, identity, connection, and belonging in the Ironbound, an immigrant neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey. A young widow goes on her first date since her husband's death and finds herself hunting a bear in the woods with a near stranger. An unhappy wife compares her mother's love spells and rituals to her own efforts to repair her strained marriage. A self-conscious college student discovers a porn star who shares her name and becomes obsessed with her doppelgänger's freedom and comfort with her own body.Annell López's indelible characters tread the waters of political unrest, sexuality, religion, body image, Blackness, colorism, and gentrification--searching for their identities and a sliver of joy and intimacy. Through each story, a nuanced portrait of the "American Dream" emerges, uplifting the voices of those on its margins.

 

Why Did You Come Back Every Summer by Belén López Peiró | Translated by Maureen Shaughnessy | ADULT FICTION

A fractured account of family abuse, secrets, and the cost of pursuing the truth.

In the most private spaces, the most intimate betrayals occur. Belén López Peiró places us squarely in the tenderest of times--young teenagehood, in a home about to be ruptured by sexual assault. In this home, for this young woman, your assailant is your uncle, and also a police commissioner. The people who shelter you will reject you: your mother is his sister-in-law, your beloved aunt his wife and your cousin and friend his daughter. And the truth of what happened will depend entirely on you.

Why Did You Come Back Every Summer is a document of uncertainty, self-doubt, and the appearance of progress when there is none. A chorus of voices interrupt and overtake each other; interviews and reports are filed. The truth will be heard but how and by whom? Loyalties will shift and slip. And certain questions have no easy answers. What do you owe to your family? What do they owe you? How far will you go to get yourself back?

 

On Sale April 16

 

GLEEM by Freddy Carrasco |GRAPHIC NOVEL

Imbued with cyberpunk attitude and in the rebellious tradition of afrofuturism, GLEEM is drawn with a fierce momentum hurtling towards a future world. Carrasco's distinct cinematic style layers detailed panels and spreads, creating a multiplicity of perspectives, at once dizzying and hypnotic. Vignettes unspool in proximity to our own social realities and expand into the outer layers of possibility. Whether in the club or a robot repair workshop, the characters in these three interconnected stories burst across frames until they practically step off the page.

A boy becomes bored at church with his grandmother until he tries a psychedelic drug. A group of friends are told that they need a rare battery if they want any chance of reviving their friend. Street style and cybernetics meet and burst into riotous dancing. Kindness and violence might not be as distant from each other as we think. GLEEM unsettles with a confidence that could make you believe in anything.

 

A Maleta Full of Treasures by Natalia Sylvester| Illustrated by Juana Medina | PICTURE BOOK

It's been three years since Abuela's last visit, and Dulce revels in every tiny detail--from Abuela's maletas full of candies in crinkly wrappers and gifts from primos to the sweet, earthy smell of Peru that floats out of Abuela's room and down the hall. But Abuela's visit can't last forever, and all too soon she's packing her suitcases again. Then Dulce has an idea: maybe there are things she can gather for her cousins and send with Abuela to remind them of the U.S. relatives they've never met. And despite having to say goodbye, Abuela has one more surprise for Dulce--something to help her remember that home isn't just a place, but the deep-rooted love they share no matter the distance.

 

Wrath of the Rain God by Karla Arenas Valenti | Illustrated by Vanessa Morales | CHILDREN’S BOOK

Nine-year-old twins, Emma and Martín, couldn't be more different in their personalities, interests, and even their looks. But one thing they absolutely agree on is that moving from Cuernavaca, Mexico, to Illinois is a terrible idea. Unfortunately, they're not given a choice when their dad lands his dream job as a middle school principal in Chicago. To help the twins stay connected to their Mexican heritage, their abuela gifts them a book of Mexican legends. The book turns out to be more than a going away present...it's a magical item that transports them directly into the legends!

In the first legend, Emma and Martín encounter Tlaloc, the god of rain. Tlaloc is angry because his lightning bolt has been stolen, and his rage is manifesting as a torrential downpour over the ancient city of Texcoco. The rain won't stop until the lightning bolt has been returned, so Emma and Martín set out to recover it.

Will they find Tlaloc's bolt in time to help the people of Texcoco save their home? Or will the wrath of the rain god mark the end of this legendary city?

 

This Is Me Trying by Racquel Marie | YOUNG ADULT

Growing up, Bryce, Beatriz, and Santiago were inseparable. But when Santiago moved away before high school, their friendship crumbled. Three years later, Bryce is gone, Beatriz is known as the dead boy's girlfriend, and Santiago is back.

The last thing Beatriz wants is to reunite with Santiago, who left all her messages unanswered while she drowned alone in grief over Bryce's death by suicide. Even if she wasn't angry, Santiago's attempts to make amends are jeopardizing her plan to keep the world at arm's length--equal parts protection and punishment--and she swore to never let anyone try that again.

Santiago is surprised to find the once happy-go-lucky Bea is now the gothic town loner, though he's unsurprised she wants nothing to do with him. But he can't fix what he broke between them while still hiding what led him to cut her off in the first place, and it's harder to run from his past when he isn't states away anymore.

Inevitably drawn back together by circumstance and history, Beatriz and Santiago navigate grief, love, mental illness, forgiveness, and what it means to try to build a future after unfathomable loss.

 

Churro Stand by Karina N. González | Illustrated by Krystal Quiles | PICTURE BOOK

Everybody loves churros!

On a hot summer's day, Lucía and her brother accompany their mother to sell delicious, sugary churros on the bustling streets of New York City. But when a thunderstorm rolls in, and the customers are chased away, Lucía's mother must improvise with a little bit of magic and lots of amor.

 

Is Grad School for Me?: Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen Bipoc Students by Yvette Martínez-Vu and Miroslava Chavez-Garcia | NONFICTION

Is Grad School for Me? is a calling card and a corrective to the lack of clear guidance for historically excluded students navigating the onerous undertaking of graduate school--starting with asking if grad school is even a good fit. This essential resource offers step-by-step instructions on how to maneuver the admissions process before, during, and after applying.

Unlike other guides, Is Grad School for Me? takes an approach that is both culturally relevant and community based. The book is packed with relatable scenarios, memorable tips, common myths and mistakes, sample essays, and templates to engage a variety of learners. With a strong focus on demystifying higher education and revealing the hidden curriculum, this guide aims to diversify a wide range of professions in academia, nonprofits, government, industry, entrepreneurship, and beyond.

 

Giant on the Shore by Alfonso Ochoa | Illustrated by Azul López | Translated by Shook | PICTURE BOOK

A giant stands on the shore of a secluded city: a place where no trains pass through, where you can hear the sound of birds, and the air smells of bread. What would happen if the giant entered the city? Would the people welcome him? Would they invite him to play in their games? Would they tell him stories and teach him to dance? Would he need lawn mowers to trim his beard and power cables to jump rope? Or would he simply return to the waves?

Featuring poignant, acrylic paintings by award-winning illustrator Azul López, Giant on the Shore is a tale of vulnerability and belonging that explores the enormity of self-doubt and the tremendous potential in taking risks.

 

On Sale April 23

 

Wild Dreamers by Margarita Engle | YOUNG ADULT

Ana and her mother have been living out of their car ever since her militant father became one of the FBI's most wanted. Leandro has struggled with debilitating anxiety since his family fled Cuba on a perilous raft.

One moonlit night, in a wilderness park in California, Ana and Leandro meet. Their connection is instant--a shared radiance that feels both scientific and magical. Then they discover they are not alone: a huge mountain lion stalks through the trees, one of many wild animals whose habitat has been threatened by humans.

Determined to make a difference, Ana and Leandro start a rewilding club at their school, working with scientists to build wildlife crossings that can help mountain lions find one another. If pumas can find their way to a better tomorrow, surely Ana and Leandro can too.

 

Llamando a Mamá by Anya Damirón | Illustrated by César Barceló | PICTURE BOOK

Max cree que puede arreglarlo todo gritando "¡MAMÁÁÁÁ!". Pero pronto descubrirá que él solo también puede solucionar muchas cosas. Max llama a su madre cada vez que quiere algo. O cuando se siente mal. O cuando tiene sueño. O cuando se le cae cualquier cosa al suelo. La llama gritando con todas sus fuerzas "¡MAMÁÁÁÁ!". Su madre vive constantemente asustada, pero un día decide no acudir a su insistente llamada. Para su sorpresa, comprueba que Max es capaz de hacer las cosas él solito.

 

On Sale April 30

 

The Salvisoul Cookbook: Salvadoran Recipes and the Women Who Preserve Them by Karla Tatiana Vasquez | COOKBOOK

In search of the recipes and traditions that made her feel at home, food historian and Salvadoran Karla Tatiana Vasquez took to the internet to find the dishes her mom made throughout her childhood. But when she couldn't find any, she decided to take matters into her own hands. What started as a desire to document recipes turned into sharing the joys, histories, and tribulations of the women in her life.

In this collection of eighty recipes, Karla shares her conversations with moms, aunts, grandmothers, and friends to preserve their histories so that they do not go unheard. Here are recipes for Rellenos de Papa from Patricia, who remembers the Los Angeles earthquakes of the 1980s for more reasons than just fear; Flor de Izote con Huevos Revueltos, a favorite of Karla's father; as well as variations on the beloved Salvadoran Pupusa, a thick masa tortilla stuffed with different combinations of pork, cheese, and beans. Though their stories vary, the women have a shared experience of what it was like in El Salvador before the war, and what life was like as Salvadoran women surviving in their new home in the United States.

 

The Best Worst Camp Out Ever by Joe Cepeda | COMIC BOOK

A boy and his father go on a camping trip! Despite one disaster after another, in the end, father and son agree it was their best weekend ever!

Simple text and comic-book style illustrations support comprehension in this delightful book, ideal for first graders.

 

My Mexican Mesa, Y Listo!: Beautiful Flavors, Family Style by Jenny Martinez | COOKBOOK

When Mexican TikTok and Instagram star Jenny Martinez ends her videos by saying "y listo and enjoy" and takes a bite of her finished dish, you almost feel like you can taste the delicious food with her. Well, now you can! My Mexican Mesa, Y Listo! is here to provide family-style recipes for every occasion, beautifully photographed to capture the authentic spirit of the cuisine.

Jenny may have moved from Mexico to the United States as a child, but her recipes are passed down through generations. She fondly recalls the smell of her mother's birria (Mexican beef stew) all through the house, and it's no surprise that birria is the recipe that first helped Jenny go viral on TikTok, achieving over a million views in the first day alone. Now fans can't get enough of Jenny's recipes, all presented in the warm and inviting manner for which she's best known. Jenny considers a well-fed family to be the key to a happy family. As she says, every dinner should be celebrated, and food brings people together.

 

Benny Ramírez and the Nearly Departed by José Pablo Iriarte | MIDDLE GRADE

After moving cross-country into his late grandfather's Miami mansion, Benny discovers that the ghost of his famous trumpet-playing abuelo, the great Ignacio Ramírez, is still there . . . and isn't too thrilled about it. He's been barred from the afterlife, and no one can see him except his grandson. But Benny's got problems of his own. He's enrolled in a performing arts school with his siblings, despite having no obvious talent.


Luckily, Abuelo believes they can help each other. Abuelo has until New Year's Eve to do some good in the world and thinks that teaching Benny how to play the trumpet and become a school celebrity might be the key to earning his wings. Having no better ideas, Benny finds himself taking Abuelo's advice--to disastrous and hilarious results.
Benny and Abuelo will find that there's more than one way to be great in this unforgettable, laugh-out-loud tale of family, music, and self-discovery.

 

The Way That Leads Among the Lost: Life, Death, and Hope in Mexico City's Anexos by Angela Garcia | NONFICTION

he Way That Leads Among the Lost reveals a hidden place where care and violence are impossible to separate: the anexos of Mexico City. The prizewinning anthropologist Angela Garcia takes us deep into the world of these small rooms, informal treatment centers for alcoholism, addiction, and mental illness, spread across Mexico City's tenements and reaching into the United States. Run and inhabited by Mexico's most marginalized populations, they are controversial for their illegality and their use of coercion. Yet for many Mexican families desperate to keep their loved ones safe, these rooms offer something of a refuge from what lies beyond them--the intensifying violence surrounding the drug war.

This is the first book ever written on the anexos. Garcia, who spent a decade conducting anthropological fieldwork in Mexico City, draws readers into their many dimensions, casting light on the mothers and their children who are entangled in this hidden world. Following the stories of its denizens, she asks what these places are, why they exist, and what they reflect about Mexico and the wider world. With extraordinary empathy and a sharp eye for detail, Garcia attends to the lives that the anexos both sustain and erode, wrestling with the question of why mothers turn to them as a site of refuge even as they reproduce violence. Woven into these portraits is Garcia's own powerful story of family, childhood, homelessness, and drugs--a blend of ethnography and memoir converging on a set of fundamental questions about the many forms and meanings that violence, love, care, family, and hope may take.

 

What Comes Back by Javier Peñalosa | Translated by Robin Myers | POETRY

Javier Peñalosa M.'s What Comes Back is a procession, a journey, a search for a body of water that has disappeared or gone elsewhere. Featured in separate sections, original Spanish poems and Robin Myers' English translations highlight tender ruminations on loss, memory, and communion. Just as landscapes witness and "preserve what happens along the length of them," so do people. We watch as travelers navigate realms between the living and the dead, past mountains and dried up rivers to map, trace, and remember the past and future. Several sections, each bearing the title "What Comes Back," guide readers on a looping voyage where they are "orbited around the gravity of what had come to be"--the absence of Mexico City's rivers, and other absences wrought by war, climate change, and forced migration. Rattled between ecological destruction and human violence, What Comes Back, what remains, is a desire to name the missing, to render belonging out of dispossession, endurance out of erasure--the spiritual urge toward connection and community.