This refreshing novel weaves together the story of forgotten Cuban artist Anita de Monte in the 1980s and Puerto Rican-American Raquel Toro in the late 1990s. Anita battles marginalization in the art world and oppression from her abusive husband—even after her death. A decade later, Raquel navigates her identity as a Latina at Brown University, constantly reminded of her supposed inferiority in elite spaces.

This semi-autobiographical novel lands like a punch to the chest because Pérez refuses to sanitize the migrant experience. Instead, she offers something far more valuable: an unflinching look at how families fracture and heal under the weight of assimilation, how racism operates both outside and within our own communities, and how resilience grows in the most unlikely soil.

PUTINOIKA writes against any definitions and forms while acknowledging the possibility of creating the unexpected!