One for the Books: Historical fiction from Latin American authors

There are so many great Latin American authors writing today. Let’s take a look at three of their recent novels.

Mexican author Sofia Robleda has written “Daughter of Fire,” set among the Mayan people of Guatemala in the 1500s. The indigenous people were recently conquered by the Spanish invaders, and the brutal Catholic conquerors have no mercy for the Mayans still worshipping their gods.

One young woman secretly tries to preserve the sacred text of her mother’s people, even as her father works with the Spanish rulers. Catalina is a mixed-race or mestiza young woman. Her mother was a noblewoman of the K’iche’ Maya. Her Spanish father was the head of government in all of Guatemala and Nicaragua. Catalina tells us, “When I was a child, Mother would tell me bedtime stories only when Father was away. They were secret stories, forbidden stories. Mother always said I had to be careful not to tell anyone about them … especially not Father.”

Her mother had a copy of the “Popul Vuh,” the Mayan “Book of Council,” which she had hidden in the house. She had told Catalina, “It’s our sacred duty to protect this book. … If something were to happen to me, I need you to swear that you’ll guard it … with your life.” Catalina was just a child when the Spaniards killed her mother, and the girl took on the burden of protecting the book.

Juan is the young Mayan man who would have been king if not for the invaders. “This house, the president’s country home, had been given to my father, … but it ought to have been Lord Juan’s.” Juan wants her to give him the book, but she can’t. The two hate each other (but we know that won’t last), and when the book is damaged, they must work together to duplicate it from memory, in secret.

It’s a love story filled with magic, myth, history, adventure and culture.

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“The Curse of the Flores Women” comes from Brazilian author Angélica Lopes.

The main story is set in Brazil in the early 1900s. The women of their little town have learned the secret of lace-making. The craft is one of the only ways for women to have money. “We weren’t all related, but we were united by the art of transforming thread and woven tape into lace,” we’re told by Inês, the narrator: “I could spend hours in silence, with my attention focused on the lace, the never-ending up-and-down of my needle, finishing off one stitch after another with the same regularity as my breath, in endlessly repeating cycles.”

There is a curse on the Flores women: Any man who marries one of them will die young, so Inês has decided she will never marry. Her friend Eugênia (not a Flores relative) is 15; her father has set up her marriage to a much older man. She doesn’t want this, but she has no choice. Treated like a prisoner by her brutal husband and forbidden to communicate with anyone, she invents a code made with the stitches in the lace, to send secret messages back and forth with Inês.

In the modern timeline, a woman inherits a 90-year-old lace veil, a family heirloom, so we discover what happened to the veil in the story. Otherwise, the modern timeline is pretty unnecessary.

The main plot is a good story, though, filled with family history, culture, adventure, friendship and, unfortunately, brutality against women.

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“The Seventh Veil of Salome” was written by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, who was born in Mexico.

The book features dual timelines with points of view from many characters. In Hollywood in the 1950s, they’re making a movie about the biblical dancer Salome, who famously demanded the head of John the Baptist. The movie’s scriptwriter tells us, “It was one of those sword-and-sandal flicks that were terribly popular back in the day. You were not a real studio if every couple of years you didn’t have at least one picture with a camel, a palace, and a garbage plot thinly inspired by a biblical story.” The director has picked Vera, a beautiful Mexican actress, to play the lead. But another woman is jealous because she wasn’t picked for the role, and she won’t be satisfied until she gets it.

In the biblical-era timeline, we meet Salome herself and find out what led her to call for the young preacher’s death. For Salome, “The stars shone like diamonds embroidered upon a veil dyed with indigo, and the moon was a scythe of silver, slicing the sky. … Her dress was the yellow of amber and honey, the sleeves billowing as she moved. Behind her came her handmaidens in white dresses. They looked like two pale moths chasing after a golden butterfly.” The ruler Herod is her uncle and stepfather, but he makes her more and more uncomfortable. “Salome saw a flicker of dangerous thirst ripple across his face.” Uh-oh.

Ah! Two completely separate storylines, and both are intriguing! The people involved in the movie are all interesting characters, and the biblical story is compelling. Adult situations and offensive, racist language.

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Happy reading!