Our Bello columnist on the essential books for understanding Latin America

Latin America is hugely diverse but there are also common themes. One is that some of the best writing about it is by novelists and journalists. Another is that the region is immersed in one of its periodic bouts of re-assessing its history. A third is that politics has sometimes been marked by violence. Many of the best books about the region are, naturally enough, written in Spanish or Portuguese. Here is a small selection of books in English that reflect those trends while paying homage to the region’s diversity. What they have in common is that they are all good reads.