Alejandro Morales's 'The Rag Doll Plagues' is an ambitious dystopic novel, set in three different locations across the globe at three different points in time. In each of the three sections of the novel, we encounter three different doctors of Hispanic heritage attempting to find three different cures: the first, who travels to Mexico City, diagnoses the plague; the second is living and working in Los Angeles when his wife is diagnosed with HIV; the third doctor works in a futuristic and dystopian community known as 'Lamex', and is trying to combat a plague similar to that that spread in Mexico all those years ago.
The novel is not short of detractors, however; some have decried Morales' chauvinism and his attitude concerning race and racial equality. Nonetheless, genuinely important literature sparks fierce debate. Morales has since gone on to write novels and novellas, and has been credited as a champion of the Chicano experience in literature.
