The Great Divide

"This historical novel, exploring the 1904 construction of the Panama Canal, is an expected read for a curator like Jenna Bush Hager, aligning with her work highlighting impactful, character-driven stories for her book club."

"This is another historical fiction novel told from the various points of view of characters from all over the Americas and the Caribbean who are touched by the construction of the Panama Canal, and the destruction of the surrounding land. Henriquez highlights the everyday people who toiled to achieve this feat of engineering and were never given any recognition, even though many thousands died from the terrible working conditions and natural disasters and other diseases. Again, it’s a novel that sheds light into stories that have been silenced or erased. Absolutely – all of these novels have been quite successful in terms of sales and critical acclaim. They have been either written in English or translated to English, like The House of the Spirits , which has also been translated into twenty languages and is taught at many schools around the world. However, representation by Latin American authors in the English publishing world is still low, and there are many barriers to Latinx authors being published, including the erroneous perception within the industry that the mainstream public will not be interested. My debut novel, Daughter of Fire , for example, was rejected dozens of times by various publishers in the United States, many of whom said that it would be ‘difficult to sell the time period’ – the 16th century, a hugely popular era if you think of how many books there are about the Tudors and the Medici. What they really meant was that they thought it would be difficult to sell a book set in 16th-century Guatemala. Luckily I was able to prove them wrong. When Daughter of Fire was translated into Spanish, I felt like there was a more organic, inherent understanding and connection with the emotional heart of the story than perhaps occurred with some of the readers in the English-speaking world, many of whom were also learning about a time period in history and a culture that they weren’t very familiar with. However, I’ve received dozens of comments from English-language readers who have absolutely loved the novel. Some of my favourite comments are from people who read the book and are then inspired to do their own research. It always makes my day when that happens. I think, in the end, it comes back to my previous comment about finding emotional truths, touching on our common humanity. That is the power in fiction that transcends language."