Marlena Maduro Baraf has a knack for raising orchids. She immigrated to the United States from her native Panama, and her writing is colored by this dual identity. She has been interviewing Latinos from all walks of life for a series of articles titled Soy/Somos, or “I Am/We Are.” At the Narrow Waist of the World, chapters of which have been excerpted in Lumina, Streetlight Magazine, Blue Lyra Review, and the Westchester Review, is her first published memoir.

Raised by a colorful family of Spanish Jews in tropical and Catholic Panama of the l950s and 1960s, Marlena depends on her many tíos and tías for refuge from the difficulties of life, including the frequent absences of her troubled mother. As a teenager, she pulls away from this centered world—crossing borders—and begins a life in the United States very different from the one she has known.

This lyrical coming-of-age memoir explores the intense and profound relationship between mothers and daughters and highlights the importance of community and the beauty of a large Latin American family. At the Narrow Waist of the World examines the author’s gradual integration into a new culture, even as she understands that her home is still—and always will be—rooted in another place.