The Hispanic Institute and the Latinos Urbanos Book Club invite you to an intimate evening with New York Times bestselling author, Pulitzer Prize finalist, cultural critic, screenwriter, and producer Xochitl Gonzalez.
You're invited to gather with us on Friday, April 24th from 6:30-8:30 PM at Casa Hispánica, Room 201 for a special literary celebration of her highly anticipated third novel, Last Night in Brooklyn, set to release in April 2026.
The evening will begin with light refreshments, before settling in for an intimate conversation between the author and Dr. Nick Figueroa of LAIC. You'll have the chance to ask your own questions during the Q&A, and the night will wrap up with a book signing where you can meet the author personally. Copies of Last Night in Brooklyn, Olga Dies Dreaming, and Anita de Monte Laughs Last will be available for purchase on-site, brought to you by Tuma's Books, a cherished NYC bookstore that uplifts and honors BIPOC cultures and heritages.
This free and open event is an invitation to gather, listen, reflect, and engage in meaningful dialogue through literature…right here in our very own Casa.
This event will be held in English. Please register if you plan to attend.
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About Last Night in Brooklyn
SPRING, 2007
At twenty-six, Alicia Canales Forten feels smothered by her future. She’s in a long-distance relationship, living at home with her mother’s beliefs, saving up for her wedding to a future doctor. But after Alicia ventures out one night in the neighborhood of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, she finds herself lured by the siren song of youth and possibility that the striving crowd of creatives holds and moves in.
No one embodies this milieu more than La Garza, a larger-than-life, up-and-coming fashion designer whose epic house parties fuel neighborhood lore. La Garza’s life, observed by Alicia from her apartment across the street, seems to hold the allure and fearlessness Alicia has never dared to imagine for herself. But when Alicia’s wealthy banker cousin moves to the neighborhood, she finds herself increasingly drawn into both his and La Garza’s precarious lives.
Against the backdrop of a potentially life-changing presidential election and a looming once-in-a-generation fiscal crisis, Last Night in Brooklyn explores the dark compromise of the American Dream for people of color living, unknowingly, in the twilight of a cultural moment. It is a story about everything money can buy—and the destruction of what it can’t.
