TRES Camarones, a village in Mexico is nearly bereft of men, who have gone abroad in search of job and livelihood. Hence the village is open to routine attack by bandit. Nayeli, a 19-year-old girl, the protagonist in the novel Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea, decides to go to America to recruit seven men to come to the village and take charge of its security. She sets out on this journey with three of her friends. Her adventures in the journey form the bulk of the novel. The way she handles the people and the situations she encounters give away Nayeli’s beautiful character. Nayeli in Mexican means, the flower of the house(hold). The author is a recipient of awards for his fiction and non-fiction works, including a collection of poems. He teaches creative writing in University of Illinois in Chicago. His much acclaimed previous work is The Hummingbird’s Daughter. -VN
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