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American Visa
Juan de Recacoechea
Novel, 1994. Translated from Spanish
A noir set in La Paz, following a hard-up teacher through the city's streets, bars, corruption and class pressures.
Books by country South America
Books set in Bolivia
Two books by writers from Bolivia, set there, that give a real sense of the place: American Visa and Our Dead World.
About the literature of Bolivia
Few books by Bolivian writers have been translated into English, so the shelf is small but varied, from La Paz noir to stories of the eastern lowlands. Storytelling in Quechua and Aymara, both widely spoken in the highlands, has long been oral, while most published fiction is written in Spanish. Tin mining in the highlands and life in the eastern lowlands are both subjects writers return to.
Juan de Recacoechea's American Visa is a noir set in La Paz, where a hard-up teacher meets bars, corruption and class pressure. Liliana Colanzi's Our Dead World gathers short stories from the Santa Cruz lowlands that mix rural tradition with the uncanny. June Nash, a US anthropologist, studied Oruro's tin miners in We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Us, recording their rituals, work and politics.
By writers from Bolivia
Our Dead World
Liliana Colanzi
Short stories, 2016. Translated from Spanish
Short stories rooted in the Santa Cruz lowlands and eastern Bolivia, mixing rural tradition, the uncanny and the region's social tensions.
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