Marisel Vera is a proud Boricua writer from Humboldt Park, Chicago. Through her work, Vera explores the particular burdens that Puerto Ricans, on the island and throughout the diaspora, carry as colonial subjects of the United States.

Her acclaimed novel, The Taste of Sugar (Liveright), a tale of love and endurance on the eve of the Spanish American War, follows two Puerto Rican families as Puerto Rico’s colonial masters change from Spain to the United States. Vera is also the author of If I Bring You Roses (Grand Central), a story about a Puerto Rican couple who, like thousands of their compatriots, leave the island to work in US factories during the Puerto Rican government’s infamous Operation Bootstrap.

Vera is also the writer of You Can’t Cover the Sky With Your Hand, a play about the government weaponizing reproductive procedures, including sterilization, against Puerto Rican women, as las puertorriqueñas struggle for bodily autonomy.

Coming Summer 2025: The Girls from Humboldt Park (Liveright) follows four girls and their families during the turbulent 1970s in Chicago’s Puerto Rican ghetto of Humboldt Park.