[photo credit: Pasadena Public Library]
Henríquez weaves together intimate character perspectives across different races, ethnicities, and economic statuses to examine themes of colonization, American audacity, racism, and generational discord. Key characters include Ada and Omar, young protagonists fighting for survival; a fisherman who refuses to speak to his son when the son takes a canal job; a 16-year-old girl from Barbados seeking employment to pay for her sister’s medical treatment; and an American scientist researching malaria whose wife becomes deathly ill.
The novel has earned significant recognition since publication. It was selected as a TODAY Show Read With Jenna Book Club pick and included on TIME Magazine’s list of 100 Must-Read Books of 2024. Kirkus Reviews praised it as “An anti-imperialist fairy tale about the building of the Panama Canal.”
The program is open to all readers. Books are provided, though supplies are limited. The monthly discussion program is jointly operated by San Rafael and Linda Vista branches of the Pasadena Public Library system, both of which opened in 1957. Both branches are staffed to accommodate English and Spanish-speaking patrons.
West Pasadena Book Group will run on Saturday, January 17 at 11 a.m. to noon. San Rafael Branch Library, 1240 Nithsdale Road, Pasadena. For more information, call (626) 744-7270 or visit https://www.cityofpasadena.net/library/?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D194035639.
