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While Pride Month came to an end a little more than a week ago, it’s important that conversations around queerness continue, especially in the Latino community. According to the Williams Institute, 2.3 million Latinx adults living in the US identify as LGBTQ. The intersection of queer and Latino identities brings forth a multitude of narratives that challenge conventional notions of both gender and sexuality. Hearing stories written by queer Latinx writers is essential to validating LGBTQ identities and fostering a deeper understanding of diversity that can inspire acceptance and inclusivity.
Below is a list of ten books—fiction, nonfiction, and illustrated—written by queer Latinx authors that invite readers to explore how they honor their LGBTQ and Hispanic identities.
1. How We Named the Stars
By Andrés N. Ordorica
Andrés N. Ordorica’s debut novel, set between the United States and Mexico, follows Daniel de La Luna as he navigates belonging, grief, and first love at an elite east coast university. Daniel falls for his roommate, Sam, but their budding relationship is marred by hesitation and tragedy. During a summer in Mexico, Daniel confronts his loss and identity, ultimately discovering joy and reconciling with his past to move forward.
2. The Prince of Los Cocuyos
By Richard Blanco
This memoir—written by the poet Richard Blanco who read at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration—details Blanco’s childhood as a Cuban American in the 1970s and 1980s. It portrays his struggles with accepting his identity as a gay man against his family’s culture and expectations through humorous anecdotes and lyrical descriptions of the colors and textures of his Miami upbringing.
3. Like Happiness
By Ursula Villarreal-Moura
This debut novel from Ursula Villarreal-Moura explores the complexities of gender, power, and fame through the destructive relationship between a young woman, Tatum, and legendary writer M. Domínguez. As Tatum’s new life in Chile unravels following an assault accusation against Domínguez, she reexamines their intense past relationship and its lasting impact on her. The story, which alternates between present-day events and a letter from Tatum to Domínguez, delves into themes of celebrity, memory, Latinx identity, and power dynamics.
4. So Far from God
By Ana Castillo
Blending poetry, folk literature, and social and political commentary, this genre-defying novel follows a woman named Sofia and her four daughters as they navigate cultural expectations, environmental racism, and misogyny in New Mexico. It demonstrates the resilience and rebellion of Latina women through a lens of magical realism.
5. Juliet Takes a Breath: The Graphic Novel
By Gabby Rivera
This controversial young adult graphic novel has received both awards and attempts to get it banned from school libraries. It tells the story of Juliet Milagros Palante, a Puerto Rican lesbian from the Bronx, who spends a summer in Portland, Oregon, interning with her white feminist icon. Rivera delves into intersectional identities of queerness and race, self-love, and acceptance; she also notably created Marvel’s first queer Latina superhero, America Chavez.
6. Her Body and Other Parties
By Carmen Maria Machado
Winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, Machado’s anthology of eight short horror stories is a folkloric examination of women’s experiences with body image, boundary setting, sexual agency, motherhood, and justice. Readers may recognize references to familiar urban legends and modern pop culture, such as a reimagined episode guide to Law and Order: SVU.
7. The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School
By Sonora Reyes
Sonora Reyes’s debut young adult novel follows teenage Yamilet Flores as she attempts to suppress her queer identity at her predominantly white Catholic school and from her religious mother. As she endures casual racism and the lingering betrayal of being outed at her last school by her best friend, she forms a bond with an openly gay classmate that complicates her conviction to “fake straight.” The novel won the 2023 Lambda Literary Award for Young Adult Literature.
8. Blackouts
By Justin Torres
An award-winning historical fiction collage of redacted documents, photography, and a story that seeks to uncover an older story, Blackouts follows an unnamed narrator working to uncover the life of real-life lesbian sexologist Jan Gay, whose name was erased from her prolific work. It is mainly a conversation between two characters who exchange their own memories as one of them prepares for death while the other attempts to fulfill a dying wish to unbury Gay’s name.
9. The Town of Babylon
By Alejandro Varela
Reeling from the heartbreak of his husband’s infidelity, a professor named Andrés returns to his hometown to care for his father and reluctantly attend his high school reunion. He is forced to confront past traumas and estranged relationships as well as the social system that has failed diverse communities in changing times.
10.Everyone Knows You Go Home
By Natalia Sylvester
This award-winning novel examines the journeys of undocumented migration, generational trauma, and the quest for redemption. On her wedding day, Isabel meets the ghost of her father-in-law, Omar, who seeks her help to reconcile with his estranged family. Through yearly visits on the Day of the Dead and the arrival of a teenage nephew crossing the Mexican border, the family confronts past grievances and finds paths toward forgiveness and understanding.
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This article was written with the assistance of AI.
