Welcome to Litsy!

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If I can perfectly align the interests of my company with the interests of top officials in the U.S. government— not the interests of the country, but the interests of the people in charge of the country— then the United States will secure my needs.

The United Fruit Company is the principal enemy of progress in Guatemala, of its democracy, and of every effort at its economic liberation.

To protect its authority [United Fruit] had recourse to every method: political intervention, economic compulsion, contractural imposition, bribery, [and] tedious propaganda, as suited its purposes of domination.

“A company, like a nation, cannot survive without its mythology. All the achievements of the Company were made at the expense of the impoverishment of the country and by acquisitive practices.

A novel based on real events, written in a non-fictional manner. It begins as a journalist‘s research notes from a visit to a newly surfaced archive of secret police records. But as the narrator digs deeper into the files, his access is denied and it becomes a journal of his continued investigations, leading to the discovery related to a traumatic event suffered by his mother. I didn‘t get the revelation, because I didn‘t pay attention the names.

Crime and disappearances in #Guatemala, a country where corruption is rife and income disparities are breathtaking. I have read the first 2/3 of this novel by one of the best-known contemporary Guatemalan authors, and am loving it so far.

Photo of lake Atitlán (which features in the story) by FerociousFlaherty via wikimedia

Although I still have some reading to do this week, I think I‘ve finished all I‘m going to fit in for #ReadingTheAmericas2023. I completed at least 15 books and experienced more countries through them. 7 of these books are also on the #1001books list. This challenge was a great way to continue to broaden my reading, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

#ReadingTheWorld #ReadTheWorld #2023Stats

Brooklyn, present day, a snowstorm brings three people together who‘ve each had struggles. Their pasts are remembered in alternating chapters and locations/times. A Guatemalan woman who has immigrated to the US becomes a guardian of a teenager with cerebral palsy, a Chilean woman and English professor become housemates all under tragic circumstances. The present chapters feature a bit of a mystery for the reader to figure out. I was underwhelmed.

Not my normal type of book but I read this for #Guatemala for #ReadingTheAmericas2023 @Librarybelle @BarbaraBB

Despite this I did enjoy this book that told the story of Father Stanley Rother who was murdered in Guatemala in 1981, having been in Guatemala since 1968. In 2017 he was made into a Saint. A remarkable man, who was warned, and given option to leave, on the day he was murdered but refused to.