Books by Latin Canadian Writers and Illustrators

Now available in paperback, Arroz con leche / Rice Pudding is the second title of Jorge Argueta’s popular bilingual Cooking Poems series, celebrating the joys of preparing, eating and sharing food.

From sprinkling the rice into the pot, to adding a waterfall of milk, cinnamon sticks, salt stars and sugar snow, Jorge Argueta’s recipe is not only easy to follow, it is a poetic experience. The lively illustrations by Fernando Vilela feature an enthusiastic young cook who finds no end of joy in m …

In this new cooking poem, Jorge Argueta brings us a fun and easy recipe for a yummy salsa. A young boy and his sister gather the ingredients and grind them up in a molcajete, just like their ancestors used to do, singing and dancing all the while.

The children imagine that their ingredients are different parts of an orchestra — the tomatoes are bongos and kettledrums, the onion, a maraca, the cloves of garlic, trumpets and the cilantro, the conductor. They chop and then grind these ingredients …

A testament to the comforting power of an animal's love.

The uncomplicated love and dedication of a dog can make anyone feel better—particularly a child who is small and vulnerable. Through beautiful, simple illustrations and words, The Dog shows how one animal helps a young boy who is ill. She is his comfort, his companion, and his friend; when he's unhappy, she places her paw on his hand to show him she's there.

The Dog is a story for young children, and for anyone who has ever owned a pet. Bu …

Pounce found Mrs. Florida Brown on a bad, bad night on the rainy side of town . . .

Pounce de Leon, a mischievous, loving cat, adopts Mrs. Florida Brown as his constant companion. Pounce's job is to look after the aging Mrs. Brown. If her knuckles ache, he lets her pat him for a good long time. When her tummy acts up, he sits on her until she feels better. And if she's lonely at night, he lets her curl up right there beside him.

Most of all, Pounce is fascinated by the view from the jumbled hous …

Traumatized by his past as a Bolivian soldier who, in a sudden coup d'etat, was forced to participate in atrocities, Alfredo flees to Montreal, haunted by the dead. He rides the Montreal metro and pours his guilt and shame into his writing, until he falls for a woman without a nation—a Kurdish freedom-fighter trying to blast an independent Kurdistan into existence. As the net of intrigue closes in on his lover, Alfredo is forced to face more fully his own violent past.

In a world where the inti …

and a body to remember with effectively combines elements of our Pulp past and Arsenal Pulp present. This is a collection of stories about rebellion and activism, while at the same time stories about the immigrant experience and emotional turmoil.
Carmen Rodríguez explores place and language in this illuminating short-story collection based on her life as a political exile in Canada.
The stories also form an intriguing document of self-translation: Carmen has lived in Chile and Canada, speak …

When Vancouver-based artist Tania receives a letter suggesting that her biological father may not be the man she has always known as such, her world turns upside down. As she struggles to understand the implications of this news and delves into her family's complex past, Tania discovers the ultimate retribution that her life represents. Narrated by Tania's mother, Sol, and her grandmother, Soledad, Retribution spans over seventy years in the life of the Martinez family, from their daily existenc …

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER (The Globe and Mail)
A Globe and Mail Best Book [2011]
A Quill & Quire Book of the Year [2011]
A National Post Best Book [2011]
A BBC Radio Book of the Week [October 2011]
One of the CBC’s 15 Memoirs by Canadian Women Worth Reading [2015]
  

Six-year-old Carmen Aguirre fled to Canada with her family following General Augusto Pinochet's violent 1973 coup in Chile. Five years later, when her mother and stepfather returned to South America as Chilean resistance members, Car …