Seattle Latinx Bookclub – Chilean Poet at El Quetzal – Seattle, WA
This month, we’ll be discussing Chilean Poet. A writer of “startling talent” (The New York Times Book Review), Alejandro Zambra returns with his most substantial work yet: a story of fathers and sons, ambition and failure, and what it means to make a family. As always, our number one priority is creating comunidad. So please feel free to attend even if you didn’t get a chance to finish the book this month.
Nos vemos pronto!
Where to find the book
You can find a copy of their book on Bookshop.org here
Purchase through Estelita’s Library‘s Bookshop.org storefront, and you’ll support Seattle’s local Black/Brown-owned justice-focused community bookstore & lending library.
You can also find the book at Seattle Public Library in print, ebook, and audiobook formats.
About the Book
After a chance encounter at a Santiago nightclub, aspiring poet Gonzalo reunites with his first love, Carla. Though their desire for each other is still intact, much has changed: among other things, Carla now has a six-year-old son, Vicente. Soon the three form a happy sort-of family—a stepfamily, though no such word exists in their language.
Eventually, their ambitions pull the lovers in different directions—in Gonzalo’s case, all the way to New York. Though Gonzalo takes his books when he goes, still, Vicente inherits his ex-stepfather’s love of poetry. When, at eighteen, Vicente meets Pru, an American journalist literally and figuratively lost in Santiago, he encourages her to write about Chilean poets—not the famous, dead kind, your Nerudas or Mistrals or Bolaños, but rather the living, striving, everyday ones. Pru’s research leads her into this eccentric community—another kind of family, dysfunctional but ultimately loving. Will it also lead Vicente and Gonzalo back to each other?
In Chilean Poet, Alejandro Zambra chronicles with enormous tenderness and insight the small moments—sexy, absurd, painful, sweet, profound—that make up our personal histories. Exploring how we choose our families and how we betray them, and what it means to be a man in relationships—a partner, father, stepfather, teacher, lover, writer, and friend—it is a bold and brilliant new work by one of the most important writers of our time.
About the Authors
Alejandro Zambra is a Chilean writer. He is the author of Bonsai, The Private Lives of Trees, Ways of Going Home, My Documents, Multiple Choice, Not to Read, Chilean Poet and Childish Literature. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta, Harper’s, Zoetrope, and McSweeney’s, among other places.
2026 Meeting Dates & Book Picks
- Sat. 1/31/26 – Ophelia After All, Raquel Marie
- Sat. 2/21/26 – Krik? Krak!, Edwidge Danticat
- Sat. 3/21/2026 – Defectors, Paola Ramos
- Sat. 4/25/2026 – Chilean Poet, Alejandro Zambra
- Sat. 5/2026 – Abyss, Pilar Quintana
- Sat. 6/20/2026 – Our Migrant Souls, Hector Tobar
- Sat. 7/25/2026 – Canto Contigo, Jonny Garza Villa
- Sat. 8/2026 – When Language Broke Open, Alan Pelaez Lopez
- Sat. 9/2026 – So Many Stars, Caro De Robertis
- Sat. 10/24/2026 – Malcriada & Other Stories, Lorraine Avila
- Sat. 11/21/2026 – We Will Be Jaguars, Nemonte Nenquimo
Tickets-RSVP Link
