Odisea Del Norte

Here is the powerful, original Spanish-language version of Mario Bencastro's latest novel, recently published in English by Arte P#65533;blico Press as Odyssey to the North. Decades of civil wars in Central America, combined with the need for manpower in the United States, have made the Hispanic migrant worker a stock character in urban American life. This is the story of one such man: Calixto, who heads north "with his stomach empty but his soul full of hope." Award-winning author...
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Here is the powerful, original Spanish-language version of Mario Bencastro's latest novel, recently published in English by Arte P#65533;blico Press as Odyssey to the North. Decades of civil wars in Central America, combined with the need for manpower in the United States, have made the Hispanic migrant worker a stock character in urban American life. This is the story of one such man: Calixto, who heads north "with his stomach empty but his soul full of hope." Award-winning author Bencastro creates a sensitive, caring portrait of Calixto as he seeks not only work, but safety from political persecution in his homeland. We feel both the heartbreak and humor of Calixto's misunderstandings as a stranger in a strange land. Through a literary mosaic of conversations, court transcripts, newspaper clippings, and intimate letters, Bencastro allows Calixto and his fellow immigrants--who have come from Guatemala, El Salvador, and even further south--to tell their own stories as they struggle to survive in the restaurant kitchens, bars, courtrooms, crowded tenements, and detention centers that become their proving grounds