Celebrating Puerto Rican Culture Through Literature

It was a tough list of Puerto Rican writers to compile. I’ve spent the last two decades of my life reading and collecting Latino Literature and I have a lot of books. And I found that by 26 I had to cut the list short. But as I shared it, people started adding their own favorite works and I felt like my list was incomplete. Especially since the books people mentioned were books I left off my original list.

This is not a sponsored post. There are no affiliate links and no compensation will be received.  Every single book mentioned is part of my personal library. And I am proud of the small fortune I’ve spent learning about my culture and history through literature.

1. “Spider-town” by Abraham Rodriguez, Jr.
2. “Bodega Dreams” by Ernesto Quinonez
   I’ve also read his second book “Chango’s Fire” but I didn’t enjoy that book as much as I did Bodega Dreams. (I no longer have it because I think I lent it to someone who never returned it.)
3. “Outside the Bones” by Lyn Di Iorio “Weaving Afro-Caribbean witchcraft rituals with the sixteen-year-old mystery of a woman’s disappearance, Outside the Bones is an erotically charged ghost story set in both present-day New York and Puerto Rico. Following in the tradition of Anne Rice, Lyn Di Iorio’s brilliant debut novel takes a mesmerizing look at issues of race, class, power and greed.”
4. “Our Lady of the Night” by Mayra Santos-Febres
5. “Reclaiming Medusa: Short Stories by Contemporary Puerto Rican Women” edited and translated by Diana L. Velez  (writers include: Rosario Ferre, Carmen Lugo Filippi, Carmen Valle, Mayra Montero and Ana Lydia Vega)
6. “The Sun Always Shines for the Cool, Midnight Moon at the Greasy Spoon & Eulogy for a Small Time Thief” (plays) by Miguel Pinero
7. Quincenanera (poem) by Judith Ortiz Cofer. I read it an Introduction to Poetry text and it’s one of my favorite poems. It’s from the book “Terms of Survival” but you can read the entire poem here.
8. “Usmail” by Pedro Juan Soto “…a masterful description of life on the small Puerto Island of Vieques during the 1930s, 40s and 50s as seen through the eyes of the islanders themselves. The story follows the life of a boy born to a poor, black woman from the rural countryside, whose American lover, sent to Vieques to manage a government assistance program, abandons her upon learning that she is expecting a child.”    
9. “America’s Dream” by Esmeralda Santiago
10. “Conquistadora” by Esmeralda Santiago
    I pretty much love (and own) everything this woman has ever written. Which is why I left off some her books – because once you read one, you’ll read all and her books are continuously in print.   
    Nonfiction | Biography | Memoir 

1. “Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict” by Irene Vilar
2. “Handbook for an Unpredictable Life“ by Rosie Perez
3. “Signing in Puerto Rican: A Hearing Son and His Deaf Family” by Andres Torres
4. “Rita Moreno a Memoir” by Rita Moreno
5. “Random Family” by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. Okay, so LeBlanc is not Puerto Rican but the people in this New York Times bestseller are. It’s one of my favorite books – one that has stayed with me for years and still leaves me wondering where every single person in the book is now. “Random Family tells the American outlaw saga lurking behind the headlines of gangsta glamour, gold-drenched drug dealers, and street-corner society. With an immediacy made possible only after ten years of reporting, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc immerses the reader in the mind-boggling intricacies of the little-known ghetto world. She charts the tumultuous cycle of the generations, as girls become mothers, mothers become grandmothers, boys become criminals, and hope struggles against deprivation.”
6. “My Beloved World” by Sonia Sotomayor
7. “A Puerto Rican in New York and Other Sketches” by Jesus Colon
8. “The Way It Was and Other Writings” by Jesus Colon

History | Anthropology | Puerto Rican Studies

1. “Islands of Resistance: Puerto Rico, Vieques and U.S. Policy” by Mario Murillo
2. “From Colonia to Community: The History of Puerto Ricans in New York  City” by Virginia E. Sanchez Korrol
3. “Divided Borders: Essays on Puerto Rican Identity” by Juan Flores  
4. “Puerto Rico: The Trials of the Oldest Colony in the World” by Jose Trias Monge
5. “The Puerto Rican Movement: Voices from the Diaspora” edited by Andres Torres & Jose E. Velazquez
6. “The Puerto Rican Woman” edited by Edna Acosta-Belen
7. “Puerto Rico: The Four-Storeyed Country” by Jose Luis Gonzalez
8. “The Tainos: Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus” by Irving Rouse
9. “Witchcraft and Welfare: Spiritual Capital and the Business of Magic in Modern Puerto Rico” by Raquel Romberg
10. “The Puerto Rican Nation on the Move: Identities on the Island and in the United States” by Jorge Duany
11. “Growing Old in El Barrio” by Judith Noemi Freidenberg
12. “Military Power and Popular Protest: The U.S. Navy in Vieques Puerto Rico” by Katherine T. McCaffrey
13. “Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Culture and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico” by Laura Briggs

The rest of my list can be found on Latinamom.me: 26 Books To Honor Your Puerto Rican Heritage