Latin American Roots | Audible.com

Latinos living across the United States have origins from various countries in Latin America. This fact is what makes Latino identity so special. With identities and stories as unique as you can imagine, narratives about Latino heritage are a maze of emotions: heartfelt, powerful, and captivating.

The audiobooks on this list can help you discover your Latin roots, with exciting classics that range across the globe. Here, you’ll find authors from the land of your ancestors and learn why reclaiming Latino heritage has become so popular worldwide. In this list, we’ve put together a list of literary classics famous for introducing new ideas about love, narrating interesting political or cultural moments in their country’s history, or having an innovative style. Go on a virtual tour of Latin America through some of its most salient literary works and get to know each country a lot better. We guarantee you’ll feel closer to your Latin roots!

You can find the Spanish version of this list here.

Open Veins of Latin America

Eduardo Galeano, Isabel Allende - Foreward

This next entry couldn’t have a better endorsement than a foreword from renowned Chilean novelist Isabel Allende, who claims to have fled Chile in 1973 with Open Veins of Latin America as one of her few possessions. Predating most of the other titles on this list, this is a canonical text that set a new standard in terms of studying Latino history. With considerably leftist, anti-colonialist, and anti-capitalist leanings, Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano himself once acknowledged that he may have been a little young to tackle such serious topics when he wrote his landmark book. But this manifesto of Latin American history is still considered important enough for politicians to gift it to one another. If you love politics, soccer, and poetry, you’d do well giving this important work a listen.

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Central America's Forgotten History

Aviva Chomsky

The history of our many neighbors to the south is much more complex than the one you learned in school. In a timely exploration of the history of Central America, author Aviva Chomsky delves into the migration crisis at the border and strives to answer the question, "How did we get here?" From the long-reaching effects of colonial violence and attitudes to the more modern interventions by the United States in Central America, Chomsky presents a vivid look at struggles for social and economic justice in Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Honduras. A focus on the way history and modern history contribute to current events leads the listener to draw cause-and-effect pathways that offer more context to problems present in today's minds. Listeners will hear the consequences of losing histories and memories, and how we must know the past in order to start to heal from it. This is a timely story and a must-listen for anyone who wants to better understand our role in the border crisis.

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Silver, Sword, and Stone

Marie Arana

Winner of American Library Association Booklist’s Top of the List, 2019 Adult Nonfiction, Silver, Sword, and Stone takes a deep dive into the stories of three Latino communities through the eyes of three of their inhabitants. Take a listen inside a poor Peruvian mining community from a miner's point of view, the struggles of an ex-Cuban, ex-criminal living outside New Orleans, and the dedication of a Jesuit priest living among an indigenous community in Bolivia. This story collection paints a heartbreaking picture of the abuse Latin American communities have suffered at the hands of the Western world. It doesn't shy away from the way that abuse is still felt (and, in some cases, still happening) today. Author Marie Arana expertly weaves together a tale of foreign greed, a legacy of violence, and the pervasive and powerful influence of religion.

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Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize)

Ada Ferrer

Cuba's history with the United States is long and full of tension. But how did we get to where we are now? Discover new details of the relationship between the US and Cuba, guided by award-winning historian Ada Ferrer in one of the best books for learning Cuban history. In a gripping narrative that spans more than 500 years, Ferrer offers new insight into both historical events and modern political relations with the Latin American island. This audiobook demands that listeners pay attention to both Cuba's own history and the way US influence has shaped it into the nation it is today. American listeners will gain a new understanding of their country's relationship with Cuba and, perhaps, come away with a fresh perspective on our future relationship with this island in the Caribbean.

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The Shining Path

Orin Starn, Miguel La Serna

This must-read history turned must-listen audiobook is a gripping and thorough analysis of Peru in the 1980s and a bloody Communist group called the Shining Path. Set upon the backdrop of Peru's shaky move from military dictatorship to democracy, The Shining Path follows the tale of revolutionaries Abimael Guzmán, Augusta La Torre, and Elena Iparraguirre. Their quest to impose Communist ideals and dogmatic ideology and the military's violent response led to the death of nearly 70,000 Peruvians before Guzmán's capture in 1992. In a tale that offers both a big-picture view and deeply personal look at this history, authors Orin Starn and Miguel La Serna provide the listener with a full, rich experience of this brutal period in Peru's past.

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Bolivar

Marie Arana

Throughout history books in the US, Latin American leaders tend to be glanced over in a passing mention or two. Unfortunately, this puts a veil over some of the most influential figures in all of history. Simon Bolivar is no exception. Freeing six countries from Spanish rule, Bolivar has cemented himself as one of the most epic and heroic figures in Latin America. But in Bolivar, journalist Marie Arana dives deeper into the history of the great liberator than anyone before her. Drawing on documents Arana draws what is bound to be the most complete portrait of Bolivar you can find.

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A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies

Bartolomé de las Casas

Throughout history, indigenous people have suffered greatly at the hands of explorers and conquistadors laying claim to new, “undiscovered land.” It’s a great stain on the history of many groups throughout the world. One of the perpetrators of this great suffering is none other than Christopher Columbus. While recently, there has been more awareness of his atrocities, much of the history taught about him is veiled in secrecy and whitewashing. A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies attempts to peel back this veil and document the truth about Columbus. Written by Spanish Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas, this is a history of the horrors in the West Indies inflicted by Columbus. This is a must-listen account for anyone who wants more insight into the true history of the explorer.

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I, Rigoberta Menchú

Rigoberta Menchú, Elisabeth Burgos-Debray - Edited by, Ann Wright - Translated by

Latin history is full of revolutionary figures who influenced change, awareness, autonomy for underrepresented groups, and more. One name who doesn’t get nearly as much recognition as her predecessors is Rigoberta Menchú. This Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights activist has been on the front lines of advocating for the indigenous peoples of Guatemala since she was young. I, Rigoberta Menchú is a retelling of Menchu’s history from a young age to the influential woman she is today. What results is a portrait of a remarkable woman whose determination brought awareness to one of the most underrepresented groups in society.

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Nueva Canción: The Lost Recordings

Luis Alberto González Arenas, Diego Morales De Murga

The Lost Recordings is an audio documentary about Nueva Canción, a musical movement that emerged across Latin America in the 1960s and 70s. The genre became an essential means of artistic expression and social resistance to the many dictatorships and oppressive regimes of the time. While covering the Chilean protests of 2019, Mexican journalist Luis Alberto González witnessed how the Nueva Canción’s songs continue to thrive today. He starts an obsessive investigation into the origins of popular Latin American music genre and events take an unexpected turn when he stumbles upon a rare collection of vinyl records and tapes. This leads him to unearth a live concert recording of Victor Jara, the beloved activist and composer who was brutally tortured and murdered during Augusto Pinochet's coup d'etat in Chile in 1973. As we dive deeper into the history of those troubled years, a crucial question arises: How come new Chilean generations still safeguard those old songs as powerful symbols, while in Mexico most of the countercultural voices of the 70s have been long forgotten? Chapter by chapter, interview by interview, the documentary sheds light on the personal and social sides of the Nueva Canción movement, as well as the impact it still has today.

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