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Set in the wake of Hurricane María, Xavier Navarro Aquino's unforgettable debut novel follows a remarkable group of survivors searching for hope on an island torn apart by both natural disaster and human violence.

Camila is haunted by the death of her sister, Marisol, who was caught by a mudslide during the huracán. Unable to part with Marisol, Camila carries her through town, past the churchyard, and, eventually, to the supposed utopia of Memoria.

Urayoán, the idealistic, yet troubled cult leader of Memoria, has a vision for this new society, one that in his eyes is peaceful and democratic. The paradise he preaches lures in the young, including Bayfish, a boy on the cusp of manhood, and Moriviví, a woman whose outward toughness belies an inner tenderness for her friends. But as the different members of Memoria navigate Urayoán's fiery rise, they will need to confront his violent authoritarian impulses in order to find a way to reclaim their home.

Velorio--meaning "wake"--is a story of strength, resilience, and hope; a tale of peril and possibility buoyed by the deeply held belief in a people's ability to unite against those corrupted by power.

Praise for Velorio

One of Publishers Weekly “Writers to Watch” for fall 2021

Book of the Day by NPR

Recommended on Entertainment Weekly

12 Must-Read Books of January by Chicago Review of Books

The Best, Buzziest New Books of 2022 by Harper’s BAZAAR

Most Anticipated by The Millions

Cult Classics: 32 Fascinating Books About Cults by Bookriot

 

“‘We all thought we were ready for Maria.’ With this line, Xavier Navarro Aquino sets the stakes for his beautiful and heartbreaking novel. Was Puerto Rico ready for Hurricane Maria? No. And yet the people endured it anyway. In the vein of Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the BonesVelorio is a testimony to the resilience, the trials and triumphs, of a family, an island, a people. This is one hell of a debut.”

— Victor LaValle, author of The Changeling


“Deeply imagined and deeply felt – imagistic and strange and haunting – and simmering with grief and rage.”

— Gabriela Garcia, New York Times bestselling author of Of Women and Salt


“Velorio recognizes that neither utopia nor dystopia are finite states, that they exist alongside and even inside one another, like the hurricane and the eye, the empire and the island. Xavier Navarro Aquino takes us on a riveting, harrowing journey through the aftermath, where the natural violence of the storm is compounded by disaster capitalists; the dead haunt the living; impossible decisions are made and seemingly impossible futures are born.”

— Justin Torres, national bestselling author of We The Animals


“Xavier Navarro Aquino's Velorio is a novel reckoning with the tragic event of the great Puerto Rican hurricane and a vibrant examination of quiet lives in extremis. It is an assured, brilliant debut from a new, gifted writer.”

Chigozie Obioma, author of Booker Prize finalist An Orchestra of Minorities


“The novel explores how a natural disaster can bring out both the best and worst in human nature...As the characters attempt to make sense of the destruction, the narrative occasionally takes on a sort of concussed dreaminess...these dreamlike sequences have a Murakami-esque flavor, albeit darker — here, the characters have surfaced from a bad dream, only to find themselves in a living nightmare...an incredibly talented young writer”

New York Times Book Review

Inspired by Hurricane Maria’s assault on Puerto Rico in 2017, Aquino presents a broader examination of loss, trauma, rebuilding, and even the notion of utopia…This is a demanding read that rouses high emotions and offers no simplistic resolutions.”

Booklist (starred review)


“An elegiac and fervent ode to Puerto Rico that opens in the wake of 2017’s Hurricane Maria… This lyrical and emotionally raw story will leave readers reflecting on the pain and promise of memory.”

Publishers Weekly

“A harrowing debut novel by a very talented natural storyteller”

Library Journal (starred review)

“Velorio is an ambitious, movingly lyrical debut novel from Xavier Navarro Aquino that looks at the real-life tragedy of Hurricane Maria's impact on Puerto Rico through a grief-soaked, phantasmagorical lens ... While Urayoán's paradise follows a familiar course, becoming increasingly violent and Hobbesian as the novel progresses, the prose is distinctive and dreamlike. Navarro Aquino swaps characters and takes on their voices with graceful fluidity, moving from Urayoán's messianic prophecies to characters that punctuate their passages with scraps of poetry ... Navarro Aquino's gift is translating that historical pain into the turbulent inner lives of his characters, all struggling in their own, sometimes destructive, ways with their feelings of loneliness and abandonment.”

—Shelf Awareness


“In his experimentally structured debut novel, Velorio, Xavier Navarro Aquino makes important points about Puerto Rico, its history as a commonwealth of the United States and the catastrophic aftereffects of Hurricane Maria, which decimated the island in September 2017 ... Velorio is far from immobile, taking readers on a painful journey across the devastated island. Aquino addresses the situation using a wide range of voices and narrative styles. Drama is high as survivors fight to rebuild what they can salvage from the fury of nature and the incompetence of the powers that be ... Amid scenes of carnage and dialogue that incorporates Spanish idioms and Puerto Rican slang, the novel includes large swaths of poetry written by a visionary secondary character named Cheo. Some of the poems are only drafts, unfinished and abandoned. 'It’s my poetry and that’s what keeps us alive,' he tells the younger gang members. In this way, Velorio pays homage to Nobel Prize-winning Caribbean author Derek Walcott.”

—Bookpage