Fiebre Tropical
​Juli Delgado Lopera

Decked in beat-up Converse, black eyeliner, and hand-drawn blue stars—not to mention armed with her favorite Sylvia Plath book—fifteen-year-old Francisca is clever, rebellious, insightful. A recent transplant from Colombia, she is struggling to adjust to her new life in Miami, especially when the rest of her family becomes swept up in the local evangelical Colombian church. Although Francisca is not too interested in finding God—she would rather sneak off and smoke cigarettes while blasting The Cure instead of attending youth group meetings—things begin to change when she falls for the pastor’s adopted daughter, Carmen, who makes it her personal mission to save Francisca’s soul. As the relationship between the two teens develops, Francisca finds herself coming to terms with her faith, her identity, and her new home.

A ground-breaking debut, Fiebre Tropical is riveting in its entirety, delving into the trials of immigration, adolescence, faith, queerness, and first loves with penetrating insight. Written in lush, heady Spanglish, the novel weaves Colombian slang and Miami English, giving shape and texture to feelings understood only by those who live between tongues. But perhaps most impressive is Delgado Lopera’s protagonist, whose authentic and complex voice—characterized by a blend of biting humor and profound melancholy—perfectly captures the difficulties of leaving behind everything you know and starting anew.

A powerful bildungsroman by an exciting new voice, Fiebre Tropical is heartfelt, bold, luminous—a must-read.

Juli Delgado Lopera is a Colombian writer and historian. They are the author of Quiéreme (Nomadic Press, 2017) and ¡Cuéntamelo! (Aunt Lute Books, 2017), which won a 2018 Lambda Literary Award and a 2018 Independent Publisher Book Award. Their work has appeared in Eleven Eleven, Foglifter, Four Way Review, Broadly, and elsewhere. They currently reside in San Francisco.

Fiebre Tropical is a publication by The Feminist Press. Click here to purchase.
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Reviewed by
Isabella Pilotta Gois
​11/23/2020

Isabella Pilotta Gois is a Venezuelan writer and recent graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied Comparative Literature. She currently resides in Puerto Rico.

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