RAMIFICATIONS (Charco Press, £9.99) is Mexican writer and poet Daniel Saldan Paris’s second novel and it’s a courageous and moving story told from the perspective of a child living in the Educacion neighbourhood of Mexico City as he tries to make sense to the sudden disappearance of his mother Teresa.

She abandoned the family home to join the Zapatista uprising that began in 1994, leaving behind her two children, a husband and a whole life in the city.

Through startling family anecdotes, childhood memories and the experiences of everyday life, Paris has managed to create a brave book that sheds light on the inner life of a working-class family in a country blighted by years of violence and machismo.