The Year of the Wind

Ever since I met my husband, I’ve been drawn to reading books set in his home country, Peru. Now that our family is in Lima, I’m increasingly interested in Peruvian literature. This led me to The Year of the Wind by Karina Pacheco Medrano, just released in English. It was first published in 2021; this edition was translated by Mara Faye Lethem.

Between 1979 and 1982 in Peru, Nina was in awe of her older cousin, Bárbara, and they spent a lot of time together. Bárbara had her secrets, but she was smart and ambitious, hardworking, and interested in politics. But after 1982, Nina never saw or heard from Bárbara again. Now it’s 2020, and Nina has just seen a woman who looks just like her long-lost cousin in Madrid. But this lookalike claims Bárbara is dead. This leads Nina down a path back to Peru, uncovering the harrowing truth of what really happened to Bárbara and her apparent involvement with the Shining Path.

What I Liked:

• Look at Peruvian communities in the Andes. Most of the Peruvian books I’ve read are set in Lima. This one, however, takes place in the regions of Apurímac and Cusco. Though I haven’t seen Peru outside of its capital city, I loved getting to know different areas of the country, the types of communities, and how disparate their reality can be from the wealthier regions.
• Exposure of the Shining Path and Peru’s recent history of terrorism. So much of this book, especially the second half, uncovers the early rise of the Shining Path and the people’s war. Political disruption and violence began erupting in the Andean regions of Peru around 1980; it didn’t reach Lima until a few years later. This novel focuses on those earlier years and Bárbara’s involvement in indoctinization and terrorism before disappearing.
• Fluid storytelling. Nina tells the story in a back-and-forth ambiguity, describing her childhood and her whereabouts in 2020 without too much structure. At one point, she states that “the more distant past seems intertwined with this disrupted present,” and indeed, that’s exactly how the story unfolds here. It can require more focus to situate yourself throughout the reading, but it makes for an immersive read, too.

What Didn’t Work for Me:

• At times, switches between narrators are confusing. Although most of this book is told from Nina’s perspective, some parts come from Bernarda or Bárbara’s perspectives. This may be due to the formatting of the ARC I had (perhaps the final publication is different!), but in the version I read the switches weren’t marked. Context clues are the only way to notice the sudden change and identify the new narrator.

Final Thoughts

The Year of the Wind is thoughtful read and a winding journey into Peru’s recent past. It’s a vital novel for anyone interested in South American history, especially Peruvian history and culture. I enjoyed spending time with Nina and Bárbara, and I hope to read more from Karina Pacheco Medrano. This is her first book to be translated into English, but maybe I’ll improve my Spanish enough to read her other books in their original language.

Special thanks to Graywolf Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Get the Book

You can buy The Year of the Wind here – it’s available as a paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

The Year of the Wind by Karina Pacheco Medrano
Translator	Mara Faye Lethem (from Spanish)
Audience	Adult
Genre	Literary Fiction; Historical Fiction
Setting	Peru; Spain
Number of Pages	304
Format I Read	Ebook (NetGalley ARC)
Original Publication Date	November 4, 2025 (English translation)
Publisher	Graywolf Press

Official Summary

Nina, a Peruvian writer in Spain on the eve of the pandemic, is pulled back into her nation’s fraught history after a fleeting encounter with a woman who is a doppelgänger of Bárbara, a cousin lost to time. The games, the candor, and the secrets of her youth come alive again, but these memories are tinged with disquiet, and what unfolds takes Nina back to a village nestled in the Andes where she must confront the terrors that stalked Peru in the early 1980s. As she travels from Cusco to Apurimac to uncover Bárbara’s fate, Nina begins to weave a new cloth of memory. She learns more about Bárbara’s political radicalization and involvement with the Shining Path, the Maoist terrorist group that instigated a bloody period of political violence in which tens of thousands of mostly indigenous Peruvians disappeared or were killed.

In her first novel to be translated into English, Karina Pacheco Medrano explores how war transforms family stories and complicates the distinction between prey and hunter. Part bildungsroman, part detective novel, The Year of the Wind records a significant chapter in Peruvian history rarely considered in the literature of political violence, exploring the anonymous stories marked by horror, loss, bewilderment, and, in some cases, redemption.