Deborah Eisenberg's first two short story collections, Transactions in a Foreign Currency and Under the 82nd Airborne, were released together in 1997 in one volume entitled, The Stories (So Far) of Deborah Eisenberg. The collection includes other stories set in Latin America.

Eisenberg's Latin America-based stories have been compared to works by Graham Greene and Robert Stone. The Portable Graham Greene (1994), which includes two complete novels, excerpts from other novels, short stories, essays, and more, is a good introduction to Greene's work. A Flag for Sunrise (1981) is Stone's political thriller about Americans in a fictitious Central American country run by a right-wing military government.

A Brief History of Central America (1989), written by Costa Rican scholar Hector Perez Brignoli, summarizes the history, describes the geography of the region, and analyzes the political and social problems of the five Central American countries (Guatemala...