Jess Wells

Two of my very favorite people in the world, (one a senior citizen and one a millennial), both recently complained that there's more wrong with the world than right and, luckily for me, I was reading "Utopia for Realists" and "Humankind: A Hopeful History", two books by the optimistic Dutch writer Rutger Bregman. I did not have to foam at the mouth and blather in pained disagreement because I had the statistics at hand.

Here's why there is great reason for optimism:

• "Where 44% of the world's population lived in extreme poverty in 1981, that percentage is under 10%.
• The number of people suffering from malnutrition has shrunk by more than a third since 1990. This year of the world population that survives on fewer than 2000 calories a day has dropped from 51% in 1965 to 3% in 2005. Read More 

In inventing the world in Jaguar Paloma and the Caketown Bar, I wanted the names of the hometowns of women to recall the drudgery and limitations they left behind. Here's a map of the world surrounding Tartatenango:

• To the south, Montemadre: Mother's Mountain, and El Cuadrillo: the bolt or lock.
• Near Tartatenango: Caketown, is Escoba: broom and Hilado: yarn, as well as El Dolor: the pain
• also, La Ceiba Grande refers to a common tree in Colombia
• Villahermosa: Beautiful village
• the Magdelana River, the Cienaga Grande de Santa Marta marsh, and the Cienaga del Tigre are all actual places in Colombia