Fiebre Tropical
Winner for the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction
Winner of the 2021 Ferro-Grumley Literary Award for LGBTQ Fiction
Finalist for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Fiction
Lit by the hormonal neon glow of Miami, this debut novel follows a Colombian teenager's coming-of-age as she plunges headfirst into lust and evangelism.
Uprooted from her comfortable life in Bogotá, Colombia, into an ant-infested Miami townhouse, fifteen-year-old Francisca is miserable and friendless in her strange new city. Her alienation grows when her mother is swept up into an evangelical church, replete with Christian salsa, abstinent young dancers, and baptisms for the dead.
But there, Francisca also meets the magnetic Carmen: opinionated and charismatic, head of the youth group, and the pastor's daughter. As her mother's mental health deteriorates and her grandmother descends into alcoholism, Francisca falls more and more intensely in love with Carmen. To get closer to her, Francisca turns to Jesus to be saved, even as their relationship hurtles toward a shattering conclusion.
"Ebullient and assertive." --New York Times
"Julián Delgado Lopera--remember that name--is an irreverent, shameless and disarming new novelist. They are a merciless satirist in control of a pitch-perfect voice that makes an indisputable case for Spanglish as the perfect vehicle to express what we are really like right now." --NBC News
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Julián Delgado Lopera is an award-winning Colombian writer and historian based in San Francisco. Delgado Lopera is the author of Quiéreme (Nomadic Press 2017) and the illustrated, bilingual oral history collection ¡Cuéntamelo! (Aunt Lute Books 2017), which won a 2018 Lambda Literary Award and a 2018 Independent Publisher Book Award. He is the recipient of the 2014 Jackson Literary Award, and has received fellowships from the Brush Creek Foundation of the Arts, Lambda Literary Foundation, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The SF Grotto, and an individual artist grant from the SF Arts Commission. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Eleven Eleven, Foglifter, Four Way Review, Broadly, and TimeOut Mag, among others. Delgado Lopera is formerly the creative director of RADAR Productions, a queer literary nonprofit in San Francisco.
"Ebullient and assertive. . . . Francisca's soul stinks up the place beautifully in Fiebre Tropical." --New York Times
"Narrated in highly inventive Spanglish, the energy and verve of this novel's voice is a joy to read." --The Guardian
"What Delgado Lopera pulls from that [Miami] heat in an inimitable voice is a bold, stylistic, and deeply moving examination of generational sadness, deferred desire, and the budding seeds of personal revolution that is entirely their own." --Los Angeles Review of Books
"Its language--funny and intelligent and fresh--glitters." --Jezebel
"Dripping with sweat, hating, and loving the experience of being alive, feeling a heartbeat and another heartbeat and a rhythm in the world that pulses through your own blood and bones: this is the stuff of a great queer novel." --Lambda Literary Review
"Fresh, funky and long overdue, stories like Fiebre Tropical are the future of American literature." --Sounds and Colours
"[Delgado Lopera] turns real stories into wonderful fictional stories that many people can identify with." --Al Dia
"Julián Delgado Lopera--remember that name--is an irreverent, shameless, and disarming new novelist. They are a merciless satirist in control of a pitch-perfect voice that makes an indisputable case for Spanglish as the perfect vehicle to express what we are really like right now." --Jaime Manrique, NBC News
"A tragic tale punctuated with queer humour and raw emotion." --Dazed Digital
"Gorgeous, firecracker-like bilingual prose and a good dose of humor--even as it emotionally shatters." --Seattle Times
"Fiebre Tropical crackles and hums like neon, embedding contagious energy in the coming-of-age story of Francisca." --them.
"A layered portrait of exile, sexual awakening, and family bonds." --The Millions
"Exceptional, unflinching, cheeky and queer AF." --Ms.
"Captivating." --Lambda Literary Review
"Glowing. . . . story about coming of age as a queer adolescent, an immigrant, a daughter, a bilingual kid, a complex human being, this book is fast-paced and energetic while also being heartfelt and captivating." --Literary Hub
"Inventive and heady mixture of Spanish and English." --White Review
"A rich, deeply felt novel about family ties, immigration, sexual longing, faith, and desire. Simultaneously raw and luminous." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review
"Moving and hilarious. . . . This feisty coming-of-age tale introduces a funny, fresh, and indelible new voice." --Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Engaging and lyrical." --Booklist
"Boiling over with searing details and raw emotion, Fiebre Tropical is a spellbinding tale." --Foreword Reviews
"A startlingly lush, humid mix of visceral imagery and wondrously inventive language that mixes Spanglish slang with poetic observation." --48 Hills
"This bilingual, fast-paced story will have you laughing, crying and gaining a new favorite fictional character." --Shondaland
"A nuanced tragicomedy, Fiebre Tropical is an outstanding work." --Shelf Awareness
"Fiebre Tropical is a story of migration, queerness, brokenness, and love. Julián Delgado Lopera has written a novel across borders that buzzes with verve, fierceness, and raw emotion. Delgado Lopera forks their tongue for this book, weaving English and Spanish in inspired and irreverent prose. This book is absolute music to my ears." --Ingrid Rojas Contreras, author of Fruit of the Drunken Tree
"When you drive around town, when you stare out the window, when you wake up in the middle of the night, whether you know it or not, you are waiting for a book like this. Fiebre Tropical is a triumph, and we're all triumphant in its presence." --Daniel Handler, author of All the Dirty Parts
"Delgado Lopera's riveting new book is propelled as much by its hurricane-force language as by its unforgettable characters, storm-tossed women making the best of their new lives in a new country. This queer coming-of-age novel explores first love, but it also looks at the myriad ways humans find solace and connection." --Caroline Paul, author of You Are Mighty: A Guide to Changing the World
"A magnificent novel, by turns electric, hilarious, sexy, thrilling, wrenching, and profound. Pa decirlo clarito: Julián Delgado Lopera is a writer of explosive talent, and this book is a fierce and radiant contribution, yes, to queer literature, Latinx literature, and immigrant literature, but also to literature, punto." --Carolina De Robertis, author of Cantoras
"Fiebre Tropical is a literary explosion. In a rollicking, multilingual prose both wise and irreverent, brimming with snark and queer humor, Julián Delgado Lopera crafts a migration tale we've never read and badly need." --Michelle Tea, author of Against Memoir: Complaints, Confessions & Criticisms
"Gorgeously written, tragic and hilarious by turns, Fiebre Tropical is the tale of a teenager from Bogotá coming to the United States and coming of age. But more than that, it's about a crumbling family of matriarchs gone crazy for religion, and the soul-saving, soul-crushing power of first love. Julián Delgado Lopera's voice prickles with tears, outrage, and sharp details that make us believe in their characters, and more importantly, to believe in their survival." --Annalee Newitz, author of Autonomous
"¡Ay Dios mío! This book's got tumbao. With energetic prose and a sharp sense of humor, Julián Delgado Lopera brings us a queer coming-of-age tale that explores diasporic identity from Bogotá to Miami, and the complicated ways that religious fervor impacts same-sex desire and one's relationship to community. Delgado Lopera's eye for detail is fierce and this book is easy to devour." --Joseph Cassara, author of The House of Impossible Beauties
