Venezuela

Doña Inés vs. Oblivion, by Ana Teresa Torres (1992). The widow Doña Inés narrates this tale from the grave, as she struggles to keep the plantation that has been in the family for generations out of the hands of her husband's illegitimate children. Based on a real court case about disputed land, the tale spans nearly 300 years, bearing witness to the history of Caracas, Venezuela, a vibrant city, haunted by ghosts and emerging as a formidable, 20th-century metropolis.

*In Trouble Again: A Journey Between the Orinoco and the Amazon, by Redmond O'Hanlon (1988). Here's where travel becomes, perhaps, too adventurous: Thrill-seeking, hilarious O'Hanlon takes a four-month river trip and trek in the jungles of Venezuela, a buggy, shadowy, prehistoric-seeming netherworld. The result? An illuminating diary of the jungle's wildlife and people.

The Mighty Orinoco, by Jules Verne (1898). Science fiction guru Verne (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea) here pens an adventure tale that follows a young man (who is not what he appears) on his quest for his lost father by boat up the wild Orinoco River. This being the jungle, there are quite a few encounters with natives, insects, and infectious diseases.

Swallowing Stones: A Novel, by Lisa St. Aubin de Teran (2005). A sweeping, fictional autobiography of the scholar and Marxist revolutionary Oswaldo Barreto Miliani, this novel ambitiously traipses through 50 years of Latin American politics. The author, who lived in Venezuela, was a longtime friend of her subject, and peppers the narrative with delicious details. From his youth in San Cristobal as an unruly schoolboy to his relationships with the likes of Castro, Allende, and Che, Miliani remains an indelible figure on the landscape of Latin American history.