Women in Translation Book Club: It Would Be Night in Caracas (online)

Please note this meeting will be online. There will be a mixture of in-person and online meetings throughout the year.

The Women In Translation reading group provides a free, friendly and gentle environment in which opinions are shared and new appreciations can be discovered. A place for curious minds and relaxed conversation hosted by poet and translator Annie Rutherford.

For August 2026 the book will meet online to discuss is It Would be Night in Caracas by Karina Sainz Borgo, translated by Elizabeth Bryer.

Please support the bookshop & the book club by ordering your books through Lighthouse, Use the code LONG-VICTORIOUS-WIT for bookclubbers 10% off.

The book:

An urgent literary phenomenon sold in over 22 languages before publication, a gripping tale of one woman’s desperate battle to survive the dangerous, sometimes deadly, turbulence of modern Venezuela.

In Caracas, Venezuela, Adelaida Falcon stands over an open grave. Alone, except for harried undertakers, she buries her mother – the only family Adelaida has ever known.

Numb with grief, Adelaida returns to the apartment they shared. Outside her window tear gas rains down on protesters in the streets. When looters masquerading as revolutionaries take over her apartment, Adelaida resists and is beaten up.

This marks the beginning of a fight for survival in a country that has disintegrated into violence and anarchy, where citizens are increasingly pitted against each other. From a powerful, new voice, It Would Be Night in Caracas is a chilling reminder of how quickly the world we know can crumble.