LITERATURA EN OTROS IDIOMAS

Tang Yitian has been living in America for almost a decade when he receives an urgent phone call from his mother: his father has disappeared from the family’s rural village in China. Though they have been estranged for years, Yitian promises to come home.   When Yitian attempts to piece together what may have happened, he struggles to navigate China’s impenetrable bureaucracy as an outsider, and his mother’s evasiveness only deepens the mystery. So he seeks out a childhood friend who may be in a position to help: Tian Hanwen, the only other person who shared Yitian’s desire to pursue a life of knowledge. As a teenager, Hanwen was “sent down” from Shanghai to Yitian’s village as part of the country’s rustication campaign. Young and in love, they dreamed of attending university in the city together. But when their plans resulted in a terrible tragedy, their paths diverged, and while Yitian ended up a professor in America, Hanwen was left behind, resigned to life as a midlevel bureaucrat’s wealthy housewife.   Reuniting for the first time as adults, Yitian and Hanwen embark on the search for Yitian’s father, all the while grappling with the past—who Yitian’s father really was, and what might have been. Spanning the late 1970s to 1990s and moving effortlessly between rural provinces and big cities, A Map for the Missing is a deeply felt examination of family and forgiveness, and the meaning of home.

Last Night at the Telegraph Club author Malinda Lo returns to the Bay Area with another masterful queer coming-of-age story, this time set against the backdrop of the first major Supreme Court decisions legalizing gay marriage.  Aria Tang West was looking forward to a summer on Martha’s Vineyard with her best friends—one last round of sand and sun before college. But after a graduation party goes wrong, Aria’s parents exile her to California to stay with her grandmother, artist Joan West. Aria expects boredom, but what she finds is Steph Nichols, her grandmother’s gardener. Soon, Aria is second-guessing who she is and what she wants to be, and a summer that once seemed lost becomes unforgettable—for Aria, her family, and the working-class queer community Steph introduces her to. It’s the kind of summer that changes a life forever. And almost sixty years after the end of Last Night at the Telegraph Club, A Scatter of Light also offers a glimpse into Lily and Kath’s lives since 1955.

Best friends Mary Lennox, Sara Crewe, and Cedric Erroll are best friends. And thank goodness, since their boarding school is basically insufferable. When one of the friends suffers a personal tragedy, a plan—and a secret—change everything for the trio . . . for good.   Filled with charm and romance, and inspired by some of classic literature's most beloved characters, The Secret Princess is the perfect blend of A Little Princess and The Secret Garden—and the perfect companion to Jo & Laurie.

“You’ll be alone in the great night.” That’s what Papa has always prophesied to her. Papa, who isn’t her real father—he disappeared when she was born. Since then, her mother has been forced to walk the streets to provide for herself and her daughter, while Papa robs and murders for the local gang leader, to ensure his access to ganja and alcohol, but also for the sheer pleasure of it.     Often finding herself alone within the four walls of a hovel in a Haitian shantytown with corrugated iron for a roof, the young girl tirelessly tries to compose a letter that will capture what is in her heart and soul. She is consumed with love for a classmate, the daughter of her teacher, and searches for words to faithfully express her feelings and her dreams.     In a poetic language that encompasses poverty and idealism, she observes the violence, the shortcomings, and the addictions of the adults around her. Her passion makes her resilient, nurturing her character and helping her to invent a better fate than the one to which she seemed doomed.

In this subtly haunting novel, a married woman confesses her encounter with a mysterious man, which threatens the stilted calm of life in a Paris suburb. Echoing the acclaimed and unsettling film Sundays and Cybèle from 1962, A Sunday in Ville-d'Avray is suffused with the same feeling of disquiet: Two sisters meet as the light is fading in a detached house in Ville-d'Avray, each filled with the memory of their childhood hopes and fears, their insatiable desire for the romantic, for wild landscapes worthy of Jane Eyre, and for a mad love, all concealed beneath the appearance of a sensible life. Claire Marie, considered by most to be a dreamy, passive sort of person, suddenly breaks from the everyday by confiding in her sister about an unlikely meeting in this seemingly peaceful provincial town. To her listener's amazement, she tells of her wanderings around the Fausses-Reposes forest, the Corot Ponds, and the suburban train stations, and the lurking dangers she encountered there. In this arresting novel reminiscent of Simenon, Dominique Barbéris explores the great depths of the human soul, troubled like the waters of the ponds.

Clanton, Mississippi. 1990. Jake Brigance finds himself embroiled in a deeply divisive trial when the court appoints him attorney for Drew Gamble, a timid sixteen-year-old boy accused of murdering a local deputy. Many in Clanton want a swift trial and the death penalty, but Brigance digs in and discovers that there is more to the story than meets the eye. Jake's fierce commitment to saving Drew from the gas chamber puts his career, his financial security, and the safety of his family on the line.

A traveling salesman during the Depression takes his children with him on an impromptu visit to a former girlfriend. A poor girl steels herself to marry a rich fiancé she can’t quite manage to love. An abandoned woman tries to choose between the opposing pleasures of seduction and solitude. To read these stories is to succumb to the spell of a true narrative sorcerer, a writer who enchants her readers utterly even as she restores them to their truest selves.

Lie. Cheat. Bribe. How far would you go to get into your dream school? How far would your parents go? Inspired by the recent college admissions scandal, this ripped-from-the-headlines novel sees one teenage girl’s privileged world shatter when her family’s lies are exposed. It’s good to be Chloe Wynn Berringer-she has it all-money, privilege, and a ticket to the college of her dreams. Or at least she did until the FBI came knocking on her front door, guns at the ready, and her future went up in smoke. Now her B list celebrity mother is under arrest in a massive college admissions bribery scandal, and Chloe might be the next one facing charges. The public is furious, the headlines are brutal, and the US attorney is out for blood. As everything she’s taken for granted starts to slip away, Chloe must reckon not only with the truth of what happened, but also with the examination of her own guilt. How much did she really know-or guess? Why did her parents think the only way for her to succeed was to cheat? And what does it really mean to be complicit?

Nat, a 47 year-old veteran of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, believes his years as an agent runner are over. He is back in London with his wife, the long-suffering Prue. But with the growing threat from Moscow Centre, the office has one more job for him. Nat is to take over The Haven, a defunct substation of London General with a rag-tag band of spies. The only bright light on the team is young Florence, who has her eye on Russia Department and a Ukrainian oligarch with a finger in the Russia pie. Nat is not only a spy, he is a passionate badminton player. His regular Monday evening opponent is half his age: the introspective and solitary Ed. Ed hates Brexit, hates Trump and hates his job at some soulless media agency. And it is Ed, of all unlikely people, who will take Prue, Florence and Nat himself down the path of political anger that will ensnare them all. Agent Running in the Field is a chilling portrait of our time, now heartbreaking, now darkly humorous, told to us with unflagging tension by the greatest chronicler of our age.

Donovan didn't mean for this to happen. When he left his book on the counter, he didn't think he mom would read it—much less have a problem with it. It's just an adventure novel! ...Right? But before Donovan even has the chance to hear her point of view, his mom is calling other parents of his classmates. She's setting up meetings with the principal. She's trying to get the book removed from the district curriculum. Donovan doesn't really know if the two boys fall in love at the end or not—but he does know this: even if they do, the book shouldn't be banned from school. Interspersed with this thread, readers will experience chapters of the banned book itself—and the coming out and first love story of its author. With epic feelings and his signature panache, David Levithan delivers a brilliantly crafted story of three kids standing at crossroads. What do you do when you disagree with the adults calling the shots? How do you raise your voice and fight back?