The Mexico we hear of in the news—the drug cartels, migration and senseless violence—is rich soil for Herrera’s moving stories of people who live in this reality but also live in the timeless realm of myth, epic and fairy tale, such as the singer Lobo inKingdom Cons who loves the drug lord’s own daughter, Makina who crosses borders to find her brother inSigns Preceding the End of the World, and the Redeemer, a hard-boiled hero looking to broker peace between feuding families during a pandemic inThe Transmigration of Bodies.

These three novels get to the heart of the matter in a truly original way. They are storytelling that is at once timely and timeless.