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In 2019, Ninth Letter had the honor of featuring Xochitl Gonzalez’ first publication: her stunning essay “Paloma Negra”, which was the winner of that year’s Disquiet International Literary Program Prize in Nonfiction. None of us are surprised that Gonzalez has since achieved far greater success. Her first novel, Olga Dies Dreaming, was a New York Times bestseller, and in 2023 she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, for her monthly columns in The Atlantic.

Now she has written a new novel, Anita de Monte Laughs Last, and it embodies all the promise and achievement of her first novel, and then some.

Read an exclusive excerpt from Anita de Monte Laughs Last and a short interview between Xochtil Gonzalez and Ninth Letter editor-at-large Philip Graham.