Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Jaguar’s Children | 2015 | John Vaillant | Buy |
The Jaguar’s Children (2015) is John Vaillant’s only novel to date, a work of literary fiction that follows Héctor, a young Mexican man trapped inside a water tanker with other migrants after their smuggler has abandoned them at the US-Mexico border. Héctor narrates the story through a series of audio messages sent to a phone number he has found, not knowing if anyone is receiving them.
The novel is structured around Héctor’s voice and the stories he tells as hours pass without rescue. Through his narration, Vaillant explores the history of the Oaxacan region Héctor comes from, Indigenous identity in Mexico, and the desperation that drives migration. The title refers to the ancient Olmec civilization’s mythological jaguar-human hybrid beings and to a sense of identity that transcends the specific crisis Héctor faces.
The Jaguar’s Children received strong reviews and was recognized as a departure from Vaillant’s non-fiction work that nonetheless shared his concern for environmental and social crises at a human scale.