Las Animas County novel earns national praise, set along Purgatoire River

A novel rooted in the Purgatoire River valley is pulling Las Animas County into a national literary spotlight. Liz Prato’s Purgatoire has earned a starred review from Library Journal and was named a Powell’s 2026 Pick, putting Trinidad, Aguilar and the county’s immigrant past before readers far beyond southern Colorado.

Powell’s describes Purgatoire as a novel-in-stories inspired by Prato’s immigrant ancestors. The book spans several decades and follows a family from Piedmont, in northern Italy, to the banks of the Purgatoire River in Colorado, where discrimination, extortion, Prohibition, crime, mental illness and family fracture shape the years that follow. Powell’s also highlights a cast that includes a single mother fighting to reunite with her children, a reckless bootlegger, queer folk finding secret spaces, an immortal cat and stranded spirits.

Library Journal called the book a beautifully crafted blend of imaginative tales and family history, and listed it among its March 2026 starred titles. That recognition matters in Las Animas County because it places a southern Colorado landscape, and the lives built there, into a broader cultural conversation instead of leaving it to be remembered only through local history exhibits or passing references to the old coal country.

Prato’s website says Purgatoire is coming out in spring 2026 from Forest Avenue Press. The book has already had a launch at Powell’s City of Books in Portland on April 7 and an appearance at Annie Bloom’s Books on May 4. Prato is scheduled to bring the book to the Trinidad History Museum on May 13 at 5:30 p.m., giving local readers a direct chance to hear how she shaped a story that reaches from Italy to the Purgatoire River.

For Trinidad and Aguilar, the significance is simple: the county’s own places and family histories are being treated as worthy of national attention. Powell’s is promoting the book as part of an all-city reads project in Portland, but the story it is elevating belongs in southern Colorado, where the Purgatoire River, Trinidad and the surrounding mining-country landscape are not background scenery but the center of the narrative. That kind of recognition gives residents a new way to see how immigrant labor, family survival and local terrain still resonate well beyond Las Animas County.