Join us Wednesday, September 23, 2026, for our third annual conversation with contemporary Central American authors at Busboys and Poets (14th and V), featuring Anna Lapera, John Manuel Arias, Ana Patricia Rodríguez, Diana Rojas, and Jared Lemus. Attendees may purchase food and drinks to enjoy throughout the event, buy copies of the books, and get them signed by the authors.
During Latinx Heritage Month, we often celebrate influential figures from the Southwest, South America, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic, like Sandra Cisneros, Gabriel García Márquez, Julia Alvarez, Frida Kahlo, César Chávez, and Dolores Huerta. But how often do we hear the names of Central American authors? Can you even name any? That is why we are going beyond the traditional heroes and holidays approach to Latinx Heritage Month by spotlighting Central American authors of literature about the region and the diaspora.
Central American communities in the United States are among the most targeted for ICE raids — and they are bravely taking the lead on challenging the arrests and deportations. This event is a powerful counter-narrative to the fear mongering about immigration.
This author conversation is part of the Beyond Heroes & Holidays series, co-hosted by Busboys and Poets and Teaching for Change. It is also one of several activities leading up to Teach Central America Week (October 5–9, 2026). Read about our Central America author events in 2025 and 2024.
Anna Lapera is a Guatemalan-American author and middle school teacher. Her debut novel, Mani Semilla Finds Her Quetzal Voice, is an International Latino Book Award winner, the 2025 International Literacy Association Honor Book, and was named one of the Best of 2024 by the School Library Journal, the New York Public Library, and others. Her second novel, Birdsong in the Long Night, a YA thriller about a burgeoning journalist in 1978 Guatemala, comes out in 2028.
John Manual Arias
John Manuel Arias introduces his new novel, Crocodilopolis. He is the author of the National Bestseller Where There Was Fireand a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award and the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize. A CantoMundo Fellow and alumnus of the Tin House Summer Workshop, his work has been published in Harper’s Bazaar, The Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, and others. He has lived in Washington, D.C.; Brooklyn, New York; and San José, Costa Rica, with his grandmother and four ghosts.
Jared Lemus is a Guatemalan-American author and winner of the 2026 PEN America/Robert W. Bingham Prize for debut short story collection for his book Guatemalan Rhapsody. His stories have appeared in The Atlantic, The Kenyon Review, Story, and elsewhere. His debut novel, Magic in the Land of Eternal Spring, is forthcoming with Ecco-HarperCollins in the Spring of ’27. He holds an MFA from the University of Pittsburgh and is currently the Kenan Visiting Writer at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Diana Rojas
Diana Rojas is a writer from Connecticut, New Jersey, and Costa Rica. She currently lives “taxed and unrepresented” in Washington, D.C. Her first book, Litany of Saints, is a triptych of novellas that explores the stories of migrants from the same Costa Rican town as they face challenges to who they think they’re supposed to be and who they actually want to be. Her new book, They Hold Grudges, is a “riveting exploration of the lines we draw between loyalty and truth. With layered, taut prose, it examines what we’re willing to sacrifice to keep the peace, and what remains if the truth is buried.”
Contemporary Central American Voices
Join us Wednesday, September 23, 2026, for our third annual conversation with contemporary Central American authors at Busboys and Poets (14th and V), featuring Anna Lapera, John Manuel Arias, Ana Patricia Rodríguez, Diana Rojas, and Jared Lemus. Attendees may purchase food and drinks to enjoy throughout the event, buy copies of the books, and get them signed by the authors.
During Latinx Heritage Month, we often celebrate influential figures from the Southwest, South America, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic, like Sandra Cisneros, Gabriel García Márquez, Julia Alvarez, Frida Kahlo, César Chávez, and Dolores Huerta. But how often do we hear the names of Central American authors? Can you even name any? That is why we are going beyond the traditional heroes and holidays approach to Latinx Heritage Month by spotlighting Central American authors of literature about the region and the diaspora.
Central American communities in the United States are among the most targeted for ICE raids — and they are bravely taking the lead on challenging the arrests and deportations. This event is a powerful counter-narrative to the fear mongering about immigration.
This author conversation is part of the Beyond Heroes & Holidays series, co-hosted by Busboys and Poets and Teaching for Change. It is also one of several activities leading up to Teach Central America Week (October 5–9, 2026). Read about our Central America author events in 2025 and 2024.
Speakers
Anna Lapera
Anna Lapera is a Guatemalan-American author and middle school teacher. Her debut novel, Mani Semilla Finds Her Quetzal Voice, is an International Latino Book Award winner, the 2025 International Literacy Association Honor Book, and was named one of the Best of 2024 by the School Library Journal, the New York Public Library, and others. Her second novel, Birdsong in the Long Night, a YA thriller about a burgeoning journalist in 1978 Guatemala, comes out in 2028.
John Manual Arias
John Manuel Arias introduces his new novel, Crocodilopolis. He is the author of the National Bestseller Where There Was Fire and a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award and the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize. A CantoMundo Fellow and alumnus of the Tin House Summer Workshop, his work has been published in Harper’s Bazaar, The Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, and others. He has lived in Washington, D.C.; Brooklyn, New York; and San José, Costa Rica, with his grandmother and four ghosts.
Ana Patricia Rodríguez
Ana Patricia Rodríguez is an associate professor of U.S. Latina/o and Central American literatures at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the author of Dividing the Isthmus: Central American Transnational Histories, Literatures, and Cultures, Avocado Dreams: Remaking Salvadoran Life and Art in the Washington, D.C. Metro Area, and co-editor of De la hamaca al trono y al más allá: Lecturas críticas de la obra de Manlio Argueta. She is past president of the Latina/o Studies Association (2017–2019).
Jared Lemus
Jared Lemus is a Guatemalan-American author and winner of the 2026 PEN America/Robert W. Bingham Prize for debut short story collection for his book Guatemalan Rhapsody. His stories have appeared in The Atlantic, The Kenyon Review, Story, and elsewhere. His debut novel, Magic in the Land of Eternal Spring, is forthcoming with Ecco-HarperCollins in the Spring of ’27. He holds an MFA from the University of Pittsburgh and is currently the Kenan Visiting Writer at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Diana Rojas
Diana Rojas is a writer from Connecticut, New Jersey, and Costa Rica. She currently lives “taxed and unrepresented” in Washington, D.C. Her first book, Litany of Saints, is a triptych of novellas that explores the stories of migrants from the same Costa Rican town as they face challenges to who they think they’re supposed to be and who they actually want to be. Her new book, They Hold Grudges, is a “riveting exploration of the lines we draw between loyalty and truth. With layered, taut prose, it examines what we’re willing to sacrifice to keep the peace, and what remains if the truth is buried.”
Posted: January 27, 2026