Best Hispanic Authors to Listen to Right Now

10 of the Best Hispanic Authors to Listen to Right Now | Audible.com | Audible.au

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While Hispanic Heritage Month always inspires articles about famous Spanish and Latin American authors, celebrating these great creators and their work should be something we aim to do throughout the year.

This list is in no way exhaustive, but it is a great place to discover—or rediscover—exceptional Hispanic writers, many with extensive back catalogs. It’s especially gratifying to hear these works in the language in which they were written, with gorgeous renditions en español. Many of the titles we spotlight are Spanish language, performed by some of the most talented Hispanic voice artists working today.

And while you’ll have plenty of their work to listen to, we also suggest you learn about the lives of each author. Their inspiring personal stories include struggles as immigrants, expatriates, and refugees.

Isabel Allende

Chilean-American author Isabel Allende is a prolific, highly awarded writer of more than 20 books that have been translated into 42 languages. Her works range in genre, from sweeping historical novels to stories incorporating elements of magical realism, and her lush and beautiful settings are perfect for audio adaptation. If you’ve only listened to The House of the Spirits, her best-known work in the US, definitely dive into the rest of her catalog for more beautiful and powerful stories that focus on the lives and experiences of women throughout history. Among her other audiobooks are The Japanese Lover, which takes you to 1939 Poland for a historical romance, and A Long Petal of the Sea, a novel set during the Spanish Civil War that follows two refugees as they embark for Chile, on a ship chartered by the poet Pablo Neruda, and face trial after trial in exile.

A Long Petal of the Sea

Pablo Neruda

Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was the 1971 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, and to this day, he is globally known as one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. Whether he's writing about the sea or love or... well, anything, Neruda’s words are beautiful and, like most poetry, even better heard out loud, which makes his collections perfect as audiobooks. Start with his Veinte Poemas de Amor y Una Canción Desesperada (20 Love Poems and a Song of Despair) and The Essential Neruda.

The Essential Neruda

Roberto Bolaño

Before his death at age 50, Chilean author Roberto Bolaño wrote five poetry collections, two story collections, and nine novels, earning him recognition as one of the greatest Latin American writers of his generation. Start with his Rómulo Gallegos Prize and Herralde de Novela Award-winning work /, and enjoy a complicated road trip through Mexico City, Barcelona, Israel, Liberia, and the desert of northern Mexico. It's narrated en español by Alberto Santillán, Angelines Santana, Yareli Arizmendi, Roberto Medina, and Horacio Mancilla, and in English by Eddie Lopez and Armando Durán.