![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.worcester.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/71\/2026\/06\/Overworked-Front-Cover-FIN.jpg\")
Published by El BeiSmAn PrESs<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nPublished by El BeiSmAn PrESs<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
In her new novel, \u201cOverworked,\u201d Associate Professor of Spanish and author Dr. Naida Saavedra explores the challenges of the immigrant experience through the story of a struggling educator, her family, and even her talking pets, a cat and bird.<\/span><\/p>\n The story follows Naty, who emigrated to the U.S. from<\/span> an unspecified Caribbean country. Naty works as a college professor in the snowy northeast. At work, she struggles to navigate academia and various cultural mores, all while working well beyond the scope of her job description to provide guidance to immigrant students. But her work doesn\u2019t stop on the clock. Outside the classroom, Naty is also striving to support herself, her children, her partner, and, of course, her conversational pets, who dialogue in the literary tradition of Virgina Woolf (a writerly hero of Saavedra\u2019s). <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNaty is trying to define herself as a professor, a woman of color, a mother, partner, and immigrant,\u201d said Saavedra. \u201cShe has all these things on her shoulders, but she deals with them because she\u2019s looking to build a stable life for her family.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOverworked\u201d is Saavedra\u2019s first novel. Previously, she\u2019d written mostly short fiction and nonfiction. Of particular note, she wrote (and coined the term) \u201cNew Latino Boom.\u201d Published in 2020, the book traced the explosion of literature written and published in Spanish in the United States during the 21st century. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThis was a movement born in the margins,\u201d said Saavedra, who teaches courses on Latin American and Latinx literature in the Department of World Languages. \u201cThese authors had few outlets to print or publish their work in the U.S. So they started their own imprints, and these efforts have given way to a new industry.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Saavedra views \u201cOverworked\u201d as part of this movement. In addition to being written in Spanish, she said the book was inspired by numerous authors working in the U.S. who write in Spanish, including Pedro Medina Le\u00f3n, Mar\u00eda M\u00ednguez Arias, Santiago Vaquera-V\u00e1squez, and Carolina Herrera. She noted as well that the book\u2019s Chicago-based publisher, El BeiSmAn PrESs, is one of the New Latino Boom\u2019s pioneering imprints. <\/span><\/p>\n As for the title of her novel, Saavedra opted for English because there is no direct translation of the word \u201coverworked.\u201d \u201cIt can be difficult to explain to someone who is not an English speaker what this word means. I wanted to define the concept in Spanish in the text of the novel,\u201d she said. <\/span><\/p>\n While serving to unpack the concept of being \u201coverworked,\u201d Saavedra added she hopes the book ultimately helps to amplify voices and stories in immigrant communities. This, she said, is particularly important in today\u2019s political and social climate. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPeople can become kind of numb due to overexposure to some of the awful stories they see in the news. They think when something happens so frequently, it\u2019s not news anymore,\u201d she said. \u201cLiterature has a beautiful power to offer another perspective. It\u2019s another way to give a voice to those who are afraid to share their stories. As an artist, we have the duty to support our communities. As an author, this is my way to do that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n -Dave Eisenberg<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Published by El BeiSmAn PrESs In her new novel, \u201cOverworked,\u201d Associate Professor of Spanish and author Dr. Naida Saavedra explores the challenges of the immigrant experience through the story of a struggling educator, her family, and even her talking pets, a cat and bird. The story follows Naty, who emigrated to the U.S. from an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17879,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[28,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-worcester-state-magazine-spring-2026"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n