carnaval fever (forthcoming)

by Yuliana Ortiz Ruano / translated from spanish (ecuador) by Madeleine Arenivar

Winner, 2023 English PEN Translates Award

Winner, 2022 IESS Primo Romanzo Latinoamericano Award (Italy)

Named one of the 50 best books of 2022 by El País

‘Thunderously musical writing… tension that turns up the volume until your hands shake as you turn each page.’ —Primicias

Sheltered within her grandmother's fiercely protective household, Ainhoa blossoms under the guidance of her constellation of aunts—women who become her teachers, guardians, and spiritual anchors. Through Ainhoa's keen observant eyes, readers experience how music and dance – particularly during the explosive energy of Carnaval – don't merely entertain but form the very heartbeat of existence, a pulsing testament to Afro-Ecuadorian identity and resistance.

Yet beneath this tapestry of warmth and celebration, Carnaval Fever fearlessly confronts the shadows: crushing economic hardship, the heartbreak of migration, and the ever-present threat of male violence hovering at the community's edges. At its luminous core, however, this novel stands as a defiant celebration of women's resilience, collective power, and the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood that sustain communities through generations.

Praise

‘[C]arried along by a richness of tone that employs vernacular Spanish, song lyrics and an engaging child narrator whose voice is at once highly believable and while also being very literary’ —Rosalind Harvey, translator of Juan Pablo Villalobos, Elvira Navarro, and Enrique Vila-Matas.

‘Achieving a feat of distancing itself, in both form and function, from the mould of contemporary Ecuadorian narrative; not only for its setting in a geographic periphery, but also for its poetic force and the powerful tone of its ideas.’ —El Comercio

‘Books recommended for gifting this Christmas’ —Vanity Fair Spain

Contributors’ details

Yuliana Ortiz Ruano (Esmeraldas, Ecuador, 1992) is a research professor at the University of the Arts of Ecuador, and 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 Award, the Primo Romanzo Latinoamericano Award, and the PEN Presents English PEN Award.


Madeleine Arenivar is a literary translator from Spanish living in Quito, Ecuador. Her short translations have been published in Another Chicago Magazine, Latin American Literature Today, Los Angeles Review, and the Best Literary Translations Anthology (Deep Vellum, 2024). She is a winner of the PEN Presents program (2023), and a past attendee of Bread Loaf Translator’s Conference. She has degrees from Vassar College and the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) Ecuador.

more information

  • Publication date: 25 November 2025 (UK)

  • Extent: 160pp

  • Format: B-format paperback (198mm × 129mm)

  • Rights held: UK

  • ISBNs: 978-1-917126-19-9 (paperback) / 978-1-917126-20-5 (ebook)

  • Price: £14.99 (paperback) / £7.99 (ebook)

Cover design by Amandine Forest