Damnificados is loosely based on the real-life occupation of a half-completed skyscraper in Caracas, Venezuela: the Tower of David. In this fictional version, 600 “damnificados”—vagabonds and misfits—take over an abandoned tower and set up a community which battles against corrupt police, the brutal military, and the tyrannical “owners.” Damnificados won the Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award, the Independent Publisher Book Award, the Prix SGDL Révélation de Traduction for the French translation, and the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. It was also a Top 10 Pick in “O” The Oprah Magazine.
