In the midst of a water shortage, a mango vendor weighs her sexual desire for a taxi driver against wanting to bathe first. Protesting an illegal extradition, two like-minded student activists march on Honduras's U.S. embassy but find themselves drifting apart in more complicated ways. And as flooding and hunger threaten the safety of his family, a father continues to strike against the United Fruit Company. Set against political and environmental turmoil in Honduras over the scope of more than half a century, the stories in
Rain Revolutions
mark the beginnings of a promising young Honduran writer.
"
is a minor miracle. In three important stories, Bessie Flores Zaldívar connects the dots between individual characters and the failures of the systems that define the parameters of their agency. National infrastructure, poverty, imperialism-these massive forces constrain the characters' lives, but not their hearts. Watch out for Zaldívar; I can't wait to see what she does next."
- Matthew Salesses,
author of
Craft in the Real World
"
is a book about soft drizzles that turn to downpours. This is a literal and figurative lluvia that converts puddles to torrents washing over busied Tegucigalpa streets, over political murals calling for freedom and peace, and accumulate into apocalyptic floodwaters that deliver life and death to our posterity. After the stories' aguaceros, the ground hardens with truth and life, hope for better futures."
- Ayendy Bonifacio
from the foreword