Afterlife

A Time Magazine Must-Read Book of 2020 A Most-Anticipated Book of the Year: O, The Oprah Magazine * The New York Times * The Washington Post *Vogue * Bustle * BuzzFeed * Ms. magazine *The Millions * Huffington Post * PopSugar * The Lily *Goodreads * Library Journal * LitHub * Electric Literature The first adult novel in almost fifteen years by the internationally bestselling author of In the Time of the Butterflies and How the Garca Girls Lost Their Accents ';A stunning work of art that reminds readers Alvarez is, and always has been, in a class of her own.' Elizabeth Acevedo, National Book Award-winning author of the New York Times bestseller The Poet X Antonia Vega, the immigrant writer atthe center ofAfterlife, has had the rugpulled out from under her. She has justretired from the college where she taught Englishwhen her beloved husband, Sam, suddenly dies.And then more jolts: her bighearted but unstablesister disappears, and Antonia returns home one evening to find a pregnant, undocumentedteenager on her doorstep. Antonia has alwayssought direction in the literature she loveslinesfrom her favorite authors play in her head likea soundtrackbut now she finds that the worlddemands more of her than words.Afterlifeis a compact, nimble, and sharplydroll novel. Set in this political moment of tribalismand distrust, it asks: What do we owe those incrisis in our families, includingmaybe especiallymembers of our human family? How do welive in a broken world without losing faith in oneanother or ourselves? And how do we stay trueto those glorious souls we have lost?