Happy midweek everyone! Wow. We are already halfway through the week. How time flies. How has the year been going for you so far? I hope that the year has been kind to everyone. If not, I hope you will experience a reversal of fortune in the coming months. More importantly, I hope everyone is happy and healthy, in body, mind, and spirit.

With the midweek comes a fresh WWW Wednesday update, my first this year. WWW Wednesday is a bookish meme hosted originally by SAM@TAKING ON A WORLD OF WORDS. The mechanics for WWW Wednesday are quite simple, you just have to answer three questions:

  1. What are you currently reading?
  2. What have you finished reading?
  3. What will you read next?
www-wednesdays
What are you currently reading?

Wow. Today is the last Wednesday of the tenth month of the year. Halloween season is kicking into high gear. This also means that my foray into Latin American literature is about to come to an end. Capping this incredible journey is Mariana Enriquez’s Our Share of Night. The Argentine writer first caught my attention when her book, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, was shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize. My interest was piqued but it was soon deflated when I learned the book was a collection of short stories. Nevertheless, I hoped she would write a novel. Imagine my glee when I learned that the English translation of one of her novels, Nuestra parte de noche (2019), was released this year.

Thankfully, I was able to secure a copy of the book. I must say I was a little intrigued, if not spooked by the book’s cover; it gives off an eerie vibe akin to The Dangers of Smoking in Bed. Enriquez’s fourth novel (and first to be translated into English) makes her the fourth Argentine writer with at least one novel read this year. The novel charts the story of a secret occultist group called the Order. It is comprised of wealthy and influential families, including Gaspar Peterson’s family; Gaspar was the heart of the narrative. There is a lot happening in the novel, from occultist rituals to tortures to nightmares. One of the novel’s plot drivers covered Gaspar’s probability of being a medium; his father was afraid of this being true, hence, he tried his best to “protect” him. I am a little over a hundred pages from completing the book and I can’t wait to see how it all pans out.

What have you finished reading?

I capped my foray into Latin American literature with a three-female writer stretch. The first of these three writers is Valeria Luiselli, with her 2019 Booker Prize-longlisted novel Lost Children Archive. It was in early 2020 – the days before the pandemic – when I first encountered the novel. It was ubiquitous; it was even cited by the New York Book Review as one of the 10 Best Books of 2019. All of these drove my growing interest in the book. I listed the book on my 2023 To 23 Reading List.

The Mexican writer’s first novel to be written in English, Lost Children Archive charted the story of an unnamed family. The matriarch was a documentarist while the patriarch was a documentarian. They were both living in New York City and first met while on a project to document the various languages existing in the Big Apple. They both had children, with the man having a son while the woman – also the narrator of the novel’s first part – had a daughter. Despite the project’s end, life was typical until the father decided to move the family to the West to pursue a soundscape in the region once known as Apacheria. While the narrator resisted at first, she eventually relented, thus commencing a long journey across the American continent. I guess, from the title alone, one can glean the book’s main subject. The novel, after all, was written during the Trump administration when a controversial policy segregating parents from children at border crossings was implemented. The book reminded me of Daša Drndić’s Trieste, a novel about the Second World War and its impact on children. Interestingly, Drndić was mentioned in multifaceted the novel. Lost Children Archive is a complex book sprinkled with tender moments.

From an unfamiliar writer to a familiar one, my reading intersected with one of my favorite Latin American writers, Isabel Allende. I didn’t realize that she was releasing a new work until the second half of the year. I was actually planning on reading a different book but because of The Wind Knows My Name’s release, I changed my plan. The novel is the fourth book by the Chilean writer I read. This is also her third release – at least the English translation – during the pandemic, all of which I have read.

The Wind Knows My Name follows two seemingly distinct narrative threads. The first thread introduced Samuel Adler who we first met in the years leading to the Second World War. With Adolf Hitler consolidating power, Rachel Adler, an Austrian-Jewish, used her connections to send her five-year-old son to the United Kingdom; Samuel managed to cross safely but with only his violin and the clothes on his back. Samuel would grow up reticent, even disconnected from his surroundings. In the contemporary, we meet Anita Diaz. She was partially blind after having an accident in her native El Salvador. This was among the catalysts that prompted her mother to make the treacherous journey to the Land of Milk and Honey. But then again, the Trump administration’s controversial policy caused mother and daughter to separate. As she has proven through her works, Allende managed to weave the threads that inevitably connect the past with the present. This was palpable in her latest novel, yet another thought-provoking and heartwarming piece from a gifted storyteller.

What will you read next?