Books set in Honduras

About the literature of Honduras

Very little writing by Hondurans has been translated into English, so most English-language books about Honduras are by visitors and foreign scholars. Honduran poetry and fiction are mostly written in Spanish, the national language, though Miskito and Garifuna are also spoken by communities in the country. Recent history, above all the 2009 coup that removed President Manuel Zelaya, runs through much of what is written about Honduras.

One Honduran voice is here in English. In Don't Be Afraid, Gringo, the campesina organiser Elvia Alvarado describes rural poverty, the fight for land and state repression in the 1980s, in testimony recorded and translated by Medea Benjamin. The other books come from American writers. Douglas Preston's The Lost City of the Monkey God tells of an expedition into the Mosquitia rainforest of eastern Honduras, in search of a legendary pre-Columbian city. Paul Theroux's novel The Mosquito Coast sends an American zealot and his family into the same jungle. Dana Frank's The Long Honduran Night documents the years after the 2009 coup, with its political violence and the resistance of ordinary Hondurans.