Yuliana Ortiz Ruano Carnaval Fever review and information of the content of novel by the Ecuadorian author. Soft Skull Press will publish the English translation of the novel from Ecuador, . Here you can read information about the content of the book, the author and the publication.
Yuliana Ortiz Ruano Carnaval Fever reviews
- “In this wondrous novel, both life’s potential for beauty and harshness sing together. Ortiz has written a story you will not forget.” (Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Chain Gang All-Stars)
- “Carnaval Fever by Yuliana Ortiz Ruano is a celebration of Afro-Ecuadorian identity and female resilience … Through it all, it is the power of sisterhood that will ensure the continued existence of the community, as it goes through heartbreaks, migration, and violence.” (Linnea Gradin, Electric Literature)
- “I read Carnaval Fever in one sitting. Yuliana Ortiz Ruano captures the way young Afro-Ecuadorian women build community by holding on to each other, and find ways to protect one another against a cruel world. Poetic, brutally honest, and deeply introspective, Ainhoa’s story hooks into your heart and haunts you long after the last page is turned.” (Zoraida Córdova, author of The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina)
Carnaval Fever
- Author: Yuliana Ortiz Ruano (Ecuador)
- Book type: Ecuadorian novel
- Original:
- English translation: Madeleine Arenivar
- Publisher: Soft Skull Press
- To be released: November 11, 2025
- Length: 256 pages
- Format: hardcover / ebook
- Prize: $27,00 / $ 14,99
- Order book from: Amazon / Bol / Libris
Blurb of the novel from Ecuador by Yuliana Ortiz Ruano
A young girl growing up in an Afro-descendant community of Ecuador in the 1990s confronts familial secrets and the ever-present specter of male violence, set against the vibrant background of Carnaval.
Ainhoa lives a protected life within the walls of her grandmother’s house in the neighborhood of Esmeraldas in Ecuador. Surrounded by a gaggle of aunts who love and teach her, Ainhoa narrates moments that evoke the powerful presence of music and dance in her daily life while also confronting familial violence over the course of Carnaval season. Seen through Ainhoa’s innocent eyes, the difficult themes that have defined the South American country’s recent history, including economic hardship, migration, and upheaval, are but one side of an enormous cultural richness steeped in the joy, music, and vibrancy of this singular community of women.
Following the contours of Carnaval, and sublimely translated by Madeleine Arenivar, Yuliana Ortiz Ruano’s sensorial and viscerally alive novel brims with poetry and exuberance, as well as the pain of an existence lived in the forgotten corners of the world. Carnaval Fever is the introduction of an important new voice in Latin American letters, available in English for the first time.
Yuliana Ortiz Ruano was born in 1992 in Esmeraldas, Ecuador. She is an Afro music DJ. A novelist and a poet, she is the author of the collections Sovoz, Canciones desde el fin del mundo, and Cuaderno del imposible retorno a Pangea. Carnaval Fever won the Joaquín Gallegos Lara National Fiction Prize, the Primo Romanzo Latinoamericano Award, and the PEN Presents English PEN Award.