Founded in 1955, with nearly 300 books in print, City Lights publishes cutting-edge fiction, poetry, memoirs, literary translations and books on vital social and political issues.

On this page we feature a rotating selection of titles from our backlist. Below you'll find books by Latinx authors that we've been lucky to publish. And be sure to check out our recent releases, as well as the books we'll be publishing soon!

Imprints & series include:

Pocket Poets Series Open Media Series City Lights/Sister Spit Spotlight Series

Featured Titles from City Lights Publishers

Retablos
Stories from a Life Lived Along the Border

Octavio Solis

Octavio Solis's memoir about growing up at the U.S./Mexico border. Recommended three times by the NY Times, and called one of the best books of the year by Buzzfeed.

Doc/Undoc
Documentado/Undocumented Ars Shamánica Performática

Felicia Rice

MacArthur Genius Guillermo Gómez-Peña and award-winning book artist Felicia Rice create a multi-media, border-crossing hybrid: the book as performance art.

187 Reasons Mexicanos Can't Cross The Border
Undocuments 1971-2007

Juan Felipe Herrera

Herrera provides a fresh and accessible perspective on the crucial human rights issue of immigration through his poetry, prose, and performance. Catch the 187 Express!

Notes on the Assemblage

Juan Felipe Herrera

"[This year] Juan Felipe Herrera's Notes on the Assemblage has been a ladder of hope . . ."––Ada Limón, The New Yorker

Every Day We Get More Illegal

Juan Felipe Herrera

A State of the Union from the nation's first Latino Poet Laureate. Trenchant, compassionate, and filled with hope. *Get a signed book plate by Juan Felipe! We'll include one with each book purchase while supply lasts.

Incidents of Travel in Poetry
New and Selected Poems

Frank Lima, Garrett Caples, Julien Poirier

New and selected work by a major Latino poet, the best kept secret of the New York School.

Cruel Futures
City Lights Spotlight Series No. 17

Carmen Giménez Smith

A Latina feminist State of the Union address at the intersection of pop culture and interiority.

Stray Poems
San Francisco Poet Laureate Series No. 6

Alejandro Murguía

New work from San Francisco's first Latino Poet Laureate! "In the city of poets, Murguía has become the activist voice of refugees and exiles—as so many of us are, even as natives—at the center of the Americas. Disguised by its sensuous intimacy, soothing and ennobling, his is a poetry that arms the resistance."—Dagoberto Gilb

This War Called Love

Alejandro Murguía

From Mexico City to San Francisco's Mission District, nothing comes easy-in life or in love. Here is an unstereotypical view of a world as treacherous as it is tender, as hilarious as it is heartbreaking. Authentic and honest, these nine stories...

Pedro Pietri
Selected Poetry

Pedro Pietri, Pedro Lopez Adorno, Juan Flores

Recommended by Josiah

A compelling and humorous collection of poems by the poet laureate of the Nuyorican Poets. Includes previously unpublished works.