Americans have long seemed content to read novels about themselves: about the absurdities of affluence, the anxiety of adultery, the pitfalls of "midlife crisis." But tastes are changing. Gabriel García Márquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" introduced readers to a strange new world of magical happenings and political extremity….

["One Day of Life"] recounts 12 hours in the life of a womán named Lupe. She is a 44-year-old matriarch who manages a small plot of farmland on the outskirts of Chalatenango, a bus ride away from the capital city of San Salvador. Much of the book consists of her meandering thoughts as she mulls over the color of the dawn, the freedom of birds in flight, the surprising militance of the local priests since they began saying mass in Spanish instead of Latin. Pious, self-reliant and stubborn, Lupe harbors growing doubts about the necessity of the...