10 Women Authors From Latin America To Read

Happy International Women’s Day! Today, 8th of March, the world celebrates women, as well as their contributions, so I thought I would focus on women authors, highlighting the achievements of women authors from Latin America in particular. The list below presents 10 female authors (in no particular order) from Latin America worth reading.

I. Maria Luisa Bombal

María Luisa Bombal (1910-1980) was born in Chile, and gained prominence in her late twenties with books The House of Mist (La última niebla) and The Shrouded Woman (La amortajada). She also later published collections of short stories. Much of her work is focused on surrealist and feminist themes, as well as emotions and longing. I consider Bombal one of the most underappreciated female authors. She was once championed by Jorge Luis Borges, and some claim her book The House of Mist influenced Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (see also my review of her short story The Tree).

II. Clarice Lispector

“No it is not easy to write. It is as hard as breaking rocks. Sparks and splinters fly like shattered steel.” (Clarice Lispector)

Clarice Lispector (1920-1977) is definitely one of my favourite authors of all time. She was a writer from Brazil (born in Ukraine) with a penetrating writing style, and the ability to unravel the hidden and capture the unsaid. The Hour of the Star, Near to the Wild Heart and A Breath of Life are books of incredible originality, insight and nuance.

III. Silvina Ocampo

Like most other authors on this list, Argentinian writer Silvina Ocampo (1903-1993) delved into short stories, magical realism, the macabre and feminism. She was also one of those women authors from Latin America whose male associations were better known and received than she was. She was married to writer Adolfo Bioy Casares, and her usual collaborator was Jorge Luis Borges. In that vein, especially, at the beginning of her career, all her writings were compared (negatively) to Borges. However, in her last years, she was again “rediscovered” and fully recognised. Her books include short story collections Thus Were Their Faces and The Fury, and together with Bioy Casares, she also penned novella Where There’s Love, There’s Hate (Los que aman, odian).

IV. Isabel Allende

“You can tell the deepest truths with the lies of fiction.”

“Writing is a process, a journey into memory and the soul.” (Isabel Allende)

Isabel Allende (1942-) is a Chilean author that needs no introduction. Her novel The House of Spirits (1982) is a world classic, and she has also proven to be quite a prolific writer, penning so far some twenty-one books, as well as authoring some non-fiction, such as Paula (1994), a memoir.

V. Leonora Carrington

It is particularly fitting to mention Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) today because she was not only a British-Mexican writer and surrealist artist, but also a founding member of the women’s liberation movement in Mexico in the 1970s. Carrington’s book The Hearing Trumpet talks of an elderly lady committed to a strange institution by her family, and Carrington also produced a number of short story collections, such as The Seventh Horse and Other Tales. I urge my readers not only to check out her literary work, but also her fantastical, surrealism paintings, which are also not unlike those of her friend Remedios Varo.

VI. Laura Esquivel

Mexican Laura Esquivel (1950-) is one of those women authors from Latin America whose name is more or less instantly recognisable even though she is primarily known for just one of her books – Like Water for Chocolate (Como agua para chocolate). However, this love story is so stirring, it feels like an absolute classic. There, main character Tita’s passion for cooking, her love for unreachable Pedro, and the injustice committed against her by her mother, are just a few of universal emotions and plights that we can immediately recognise and bond over.

VII. Fernanda Melchor

I love the immediacy and intensity of Fernanda Melchor (1982-)’s writing. The author from Mexico may have penned only four novels so far, but they have achieved much recognition. Book Hurricane Season (Temporada de huracanes) (2017), which was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2020, focuses on a murder, and explores violence and machismo in the contemporary Mexican society, while novel Paradais (2021) explores the darker sides of the contemporary society through teenage obsessions.

VIII. Mariana Enríquez

This Argentinian author (1973-) is one of the prominent voices of what is now known as the “new Argentine narrative” group (which also comprises such authors as Samanta Schweblin and Agustina Bazterrica). Her short story collections The Dangers of Smoking in Bed (2009) and Things We Lost in the Fire (2016) are described as “haunting” and “wildly imaginative”. However, her novels such as Cómo desaparecer completamente (How To Disappear Completely) and Nuestra parte de noche (Our Share of Night) are also worth checking out, though they do deal with dark and uncomfortable themes.

IX. Edwidge Danticat 

Like other Caribbean literature (for example, see Patrick Chamoiseau‘s Texaco (Martinique)), Haitian literature is often characterised by revolt, suffering and identity struggle. Edwidge Danticat (1969 -)’s work also talks about these issues. For example, her short story collection Krik? Krak! (1997) is about struggles for survival in Haiti, and her novel Farming of Bones (1998) is set during the Parsley massacre of 1937, when tens of thousands of Haitian were brutally murdered. Danticat is one of those women authors who is a true inspiration.

X. Guadalupe Nettel

There are at present some very talented women authors from Latin America taking on the literary scene, and Mexican author Guadalupe Nettel (1973-) is one of them. Her novel El huésped (Still Born), focusing on difficult decisions regarding motherhood, was short-listed for the International Booker Prize 2023, and her previous books After the Winter (Después del invierno) and The Body Where I Was Born (El cuerpo en que nací) also gained quite a recognition. Nettel is definitely an author to keep an eye on in future.