Sofia Robleda's Reading List

"I recommend this book because it’s got everything I love – a heroine striving against the societal constraints of her gender, unusual settings, family secrets, betrayal, mystery, and above all – chocolate. How can anyone resist? It’s a refreshing take on an over-saturated era in historical fiction, namely the Second World War. Plus, there is a sequel for those readers out there who enjoy spending a bit more time with their favourite characters. That makes it even more interesting."

"It’s like reading a fever dream: it’s short and sharp but there is so much meticulous, intricate, almost psychedelic detail on every page. The entire book is set across a single day, and you are completely and totally submerged in it. There is plenty of satire as well – a dark humour, which I think shows how much Enrigue enjoyed reimagining this moment, transforming it to something most Mexicans wish had happened. I loved this novel, and it was a massive inspiration for me when writing The Other Moctezuma Girls . I think the genre reflects something we long for, or something we fear, which are honest feelings. The best fiction , including stories that imagine alternative history, is based on emotional truth. When you write a story which resonates with another human being, it uncovers our shared humanity, and that is a powerful thing."

"I love that Grande brought to light two historical events which are largely ignored or unknown by today’s readers. First, the book is set against the backdrop of the Mexican-American war, which was manufactured by the United States to uphold colonialist beliefs in their ‘ Manifest Destiny ’, and which ended in the catastrophic loss of nearly half of our Mexican territory. California, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas were all part of Mexico, and the United States annexed them alongside the Mexican and Indigenous people that had lived there for centuries, if not millennia. “When you write a story which resonates with another human being, it uncovers our shared humanity” Reyna explores this tragedy through two protagonists, Ximena, a fictional Mexican army nurse who falls in love with John Riley, who was a real-life Irish immigrant soldier who defected the US Army and formed the St Patrick’s Battalion under the Mexican flag. Here is another fascinating history that is not spoken about often enough: the hundreds of immigrants and enslaved Indigenous and African men who switched sides to fight for Mexico, which had abolished slavery two decades prior. Unfortunately, slavery was reinstated in the territory that was lost to the United States. Overall, it’s a hugely relevant novel in light of the political climate in the United States today – and the way immigrants are being mistreated, scapegoated and dehumanised, when in fact we have always been there."

"The House of the Spirits is a modern-day classic, and a staple of Latin American literature. Personally, I have read this novel at least three times, and it’s one of those books that I can close my eyes and picture scene by scene. I don’t think I would be the writer I am today without it. The book is seen through two points of view, Esteban who is the patriarch of the Trueba family, and his granddaughter Alba, and spans four generations through the political upheavals of Chile, which is Allende’s home country. I would argue that it is all reality. Magic, mysticism, myths, ghost stories, superstitions, spirituality, religion, miracles, curses, the occult… They are part and parcel of growing up in Latin America. Magical realism is simply our reflection of the mundane, our way of dealing with ongoing extraordinary, surreal events; military coups, femicide, collapsing economies, hundreds of thousands of people killed in an endless war on drugs. Magical realism is a mirror to our daily experiences, and I think Allende leans into this facet of our world in a very natural way."

"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."