Charco Press adds Julia Alvarez to 2024 list 

Charco Press has snapped up Julia Alvarez’s The Cemetery of Untold Stories. 

Carolina Orloff, publishing director, acquired UK English rights from Abner Stein. It will form part of the publisher’s Untranslated Series and will be published on 4th June 2024. 

The Cemetery of Untold Stories is billed as “an extraordinary novel that centres around celebrated novelist Alma Cruz, who returns to her homeland in the Dominican Republic”.  

“On a small plot of land she starts to bury her untold stories, she creates a graveyard for her manuscript drafts and revisions. But the characters who Alma has tried and failed to bring to life still haunt her,” the publisher said. 

Orloff commented: “We are extremely excited to be bringing Julia Alvarez’s newest work to readers in the UK. We are huge admirers of her writing, not just because of her mastery of characters and storytelling, but also for her ability to bring universal themes such as immigration, language and identity to the fore. To publish authors such as Julia was one of the key motivations behind our Untranslated Series when we launched it in 2020, and we could not be more honoured to include The Cemetery of Untold Stories in it, and to have Julia form part of our catalogue.” 

Alvarez added: “I’m delighted to have my latest novel in the hands of Charco Press. With my roots in the southern Americas and my education in English in North America, Charco’s focus on Latin American writers in translation honours both traditions which have formed me as a writer. Charco Press publishes a stunning array of excellent translations of the best contemporary Latin America fiction, authors I already know and love (Piñeiro) and others I’ve discovered through the press. I’m honoured to join such an impressive company.”