Reading List
Ave Barrera
Mexican Novelist
Ave Barrera is a Mexican writer, born in Guadalajara in 1980. She studied Hispanic literature at the University of Guadalajara and has also studied at Complutense University in Madrid. She has worked as an editor, copywriter and ghostwriter, and has published short stories, novels and children’s books. Her debut novel Puertas demasiado pequeñas won the Sergio Galindo Award from Veracruz University, and her novel Restauración appeared in English as The Forgery. She lives in Mexico City. Her picks here are four Mexican classics: Elena Garro’s Recollections of Things to Come, Nellie Campobello’s Cartucho and My Mother’s Hands, Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo and Carlos Fuentes’s Aura.
Aura
by Carlos Fuentes · 1991 · Fiction
“It is a very brief and self-contained novel that maintains the tension in each line. What I most admire about it is its ability to build atmosphere and cause us to feel trapped in this shady house among the smell of moss and decaying plants.” — via Interview, August 2022
Recollections of Things to Come
by Elena Garro · 1969 · Fiction
“I think it's one of the most beautiful novels ever written. It's a love story and also the story of a territory and a very specific moment in the life of the country.” — via Interview, August 2022
Cartucho and My Mother’s Hands
by Nellie Campobello · 1988 · Fiction
“I think Cartucho should be read in schools the world over.” — via Interview, August 2022
Pedro Páramo
by Juan Rulfo · 1994 · Classics
“Comala is a powerful mythical universe that represents abandonment and loss from many angles.” — via Interview, August 2022
