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The most glaring evidence was a now-notorious “summer reading list,” which recommended 15 books, five of them real, 10 of them imaginary, with summaries of fake titles like Isabel Allende’s Tidewater Dreams, Min Jin Lee’s Nightshade Market, Rebecca Makkai’s Boiling Point, and Percival Everett’s The Rainmakers.

His debut novel, “The Undoing of Alejandro Velasco,” a contemporary mystery set amid the Mexican upper crust in the picturesque town of San Miguel de Allende, is out Thursday via Amazon Crossing.

The novel follows Julian as he visits the wealthy Velasco family in San Miguel de Allende with ulterior motives to slowly infiltrate their manicured lives.

He grew up visiting relatives in San Miguel de Allende — a town now heavily gentrified by American immigrants — wishing to one day film a project on its cobblestone streets.

Author Barbara Kingsolver won the award for distinguished contribution to American letters, which has previously been won by writers including Toni Morrison and Isabel Allende, while publisher W. Paul Coates — the father of author Ta-Nehisi Coates — won the 2024 Literarian Award, a lifetime achievement prize for outstanding service to the literary community.