New Mexico's Spanish legacy has informed the cultural traditions of one of the last states to join the union for more than four hundred years, or before the alluring capital of Santa Fe was founded in 1610. The fame the region gained from artist Georgia O'Keefe, writers Lew Wallace and D.H. Lawrence and pistolero Billy the Kid has made New Mexico an international tourist destination. But the Spanish annals also have enriched the Land of Enchantment with the factual stories of a superhero knight, the greatest queen in history, a saintly gent whose coffin periodically rises from the depths of the earth and a mysterious ancient map. Join author Ray John de Aragón as he reveals hidden treasure full of suspense and intrigue.
These twenty-five New Mexico legends and folktales, in English and regional Spanish, relate to the supernatural and deliver the truths and moral messages of centuries-old folktales told around the world.
One of the most fascinating folktales of New Mexico concerns a gold mine believed to lie near Truchas Peaks north of Santa Fe. Initially discovered by Spanish explorers, the mine is said to have been worked by three secretive German immigrants, who took its location to their graves. Some years later, so the story goes, the mine was rediscovered by a poor herder named Juan Mondragon, who died at the hand of his adulterous wife before he could make its location known.
This book of stories and recipes introduces two eccentric families that would never have eaten together, let alone exchanged recipes, but for the improbable marriage of the author’s parents: a nuevomexicano from Taos and a painter who came from Texas to New Mexico to study art. Recalling the good and the terrible cooks in her family, Anita Rodríguez also shares the complications of navigating a safe path among contradictory cultural perspectives. She takes us from the mountain villages of New Mexico in the 1940s to sipping mint juleps on the porch of a mansion in the South, and also on a prolonged pilgrimage to Mexico and back again to New Mexico. Accompanied by Rodríguez’s vibrant paintings—including scenes of people eating on fiesta nights and plastering an adobe church—Coyota in the Kitchen shows how food reflects the complicated family histories that shape our lives.
In the shadow of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, New Mexico’s Mora Valley harbors the ghosts of history: troubadours and soldiers, Plains Indians and settlers, families fleeing and finding home. There, more than a century ago, villagers collect scraps of paper documenting the valley’s history and their identity—military records, travelers’ diaries, newspaper articles, poetry, and more—and bind them into a leather portfolio known as “The Book of Archives.” When a bomb blast during the Mexican-American War scatters the book’s contents to the wind, the memory of the accounts lives on instead in the minds of Mora residents. Poets and storytellers pass down the valley’s traditions into the twentieth century, from one generation to the next. In this pathbreaking dual-language volume, author A. Gabriel Meléndez joins their ranks, continuing the retelling of Mora Valley’s tales for our time. A native of Mora with el don de la palabra, the divine gift of words, Meléndez mines historical sources and his own imagination to reconstruct the valley’s story, first in English and then in Spanish. He strings together humorous, tragic, and quotidian vignettes about historical events and unlikely occurrences, creating a vivid portrait of Mora, both in cultural memory and present reality. Local gossip and family legend intertwine with Spanish-language ballads and the poetry of New Mexico’s most famous dueling troubadours, Old Man Vilmas and the poet García. Drawing on New Mexican storytelling tradition, Meléndez weaves a colorful dual-language representation of a place whose irresistible characters and unforgettable events, and the inescapable truths they embody, still resonate today.
"The Death of Bernadette Lefthand should rank among the classics of American fiction." —Tony Hillerman "In 100 years, someone will open The Death of Bernadette Lefthand and still be consumed by the wisdom, the different cultural beliefs between tribes, and struck that love and jealousy are the poles from which evil comes. In my top five favorite reads." —Jo-Ann Mapson, author of Blue Rodeo, The Wilder Sister, and Solomon's Oak "Querry conjures up a fascinating mix of cultures and values, and, best of all, a gripping story." —Hungry Mind Review Ron Querry's debut novel, originally published in 1993 by Red Crane, is a foundational novel in contemporary Native American writing. Querry uses the alternating viewpoints of Gracie, Bernadette's younger sister, and Starr Stubbs, the wealthy New Yorker who lives just outside of Dulce, New Mexico-to detail the tragic end of Bernadette's life. The conflicting accounts create a compelling novel about heritage, family, and the dark magic of the twisted soul. This twenty-fifth anniversary edition of Ron Querry's debut novel features a new afterword in which the author offers insight into the writing of this American classic. Ron Querry is an internationally acclaimed, American author and enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Querry lives in northern New Mexico with his wife, fine art photographer Elaine Querry, and their cow dogs, BeauDog and Shorty.
Fifteen thousand years before Europeans stepped foot in the Americas, people had already spread from tip to tip and coast to coast. Like all humans, these Native Americans sought to understand their place in the universe, the nature of their relationship with the divine, and the origin of the world into which their ancestors had emerged. The answers lay in their sacred stories. Author María García Esperón, illustrator Amanda Mijangos, and translator David Bowles have gifted us a treasure. Their talents have woven this collection of stories from nations and cultures across our two continents—the Sea-Ringed World, as the Aztecs called it—from the edge of Argentina all the way up to Alaska. The Em Querido list seeks to introduce the finest books in translation from around the world to an American audience. We feel lucky to be bringing you this book on our inaugural list, which we hope will be a true window and mirror
