John Manuel Arias highlights three Costa Rican writers as his novel Crocodilopolis arrives this week

John Manuel Arias’s debut novel Crocodilopolis is out this week from Bloomsbury, and the release is accompanied by a look at three Costa Rican writers he considers essential reading. The list offers a compact portrait of a national literature that is as rich and varied as the country’s landscape, from the forests and reefs often associated with Costa Rica to a publishing culture that continues to support its literary history.

Costa Rica is frequently described in terms of its environment, but its books tell a similarly expansive story. Publishing houses such as La Universidad de Costa Rica and La Editorial de Costa Rica have helped keep earlier writers in circulation, while the country’s National Book Festival in San José, held on the final Saturday of August, provides a recurring public showcase for readers and writers. Against that backdrop, Arias points readers toward authors whose work helps explain why Costa Rican literature deserves a wider audience.

Yolanda Oreamuno

The first writer Arias singles out is Yolanda Oreamuno, a figure presented as strikingly ahead of her era. Her best-known work, La ruta de su evasion, translated as Her Way Out, is her only novel, but it has had an outsize influence. Set within a family ruled by a violent patriarch, the book follows a household shaped by bitterness, oppression, and the emotional cost of a loveless marriage. A sick, bedridden wife looks toward death as the only exit, while her sons struggle with the risk of becoming like their father.

Her Way Out stands out for combining political force with literary ambition. It is described as both revolutionary and unusually beautiful, and it has endured as a feminist landmark for Costa Rican women across generations. Oreamuno’s reputation rests not on a large body of fiction, but on the intensity and permanence of a novel that confronted patriarchy directly at a time when such arguments were still rare in the national literature.

Eunice Odio

AriAS’s second recommendation is Eunice Odio, whose poetry moves in a very different register. Odio is placed outside conventional ideas of literary time: not simply ahead of her era, but in a mode of writing that seems detached from chronology altogether. Her work is described as expansive and intimate at once, drawing readers into a world that feels both cosmic and deeply interior.

Central to her reputation is El tránsito del fuego, or The Fire’s Journey, a four-part collection in which Odio reimagines creation through an epic framework of gods, destruction, and elemental power. That blend of scale and lyric intensity has made her poetry a cult favorite. The collection’s mythology and emotional force give her work a singular place in Costa Rican letters, especially for readers interested in poetry that operates on a grand symbolic level without losing its personal resonance.

Quince Duncan

The third writer on Arias’s list, Quince Duncan, brings the conversation south to the province of Limón and to a different but equally important literary legacy. Duncan is recognized as the first Afro-Caribbean writer to publish in Spanish in Costa Rica, a distinction that marks him as a foundational figure in the country’s literary history.

Over the past 50 years, Duncan has built an extensive bibliography of 14 books, including Los cuatro espejos and Las raíces vivientes. His work has helped reshape the national canon by centering Black characters and the experiences of Afro-Caribbean communities, especially in Limón, where Black culture and history are an essential part of the region’s identity. Rather than standing at the margins of Costa Rican writing, Duncan’s fiction has expanded what Costa Rican writing can contain.

Taken together, the three writers form a useful introduction to the range of Costa Rican literature. Oreamuno’s feminist modernism, Odio’s mythic and lyrical vision, and Duncan’s Afro-Caribbean storytelling each open a different path into the country’s literary life. That breadth matters in a place where the language of biodiversity is often used to describe the natural world; the same idea could just as easily be applied to its books.

Arias’s recommendation also underscores how contemporary authors can help reintroduce earlier voices to new readers. With Crocodilopolis arriving now, his spotlight on these writers places his own work in conversation with a longer literary tradition—one sustained by publishers, festivals, and readers who continue to keep Costa Rican writing visible.