Sabrina & Corina
Sabrina & Corina

Author: Kali Fajardo-Anstine

Publisher: One World

Published: 2019-04-02

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 0525511318

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NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • Latinas of Indigenous descent living in the American West take center stage in this haunting debut story collection—a powerful meditation on friendship, mothers and daughters, and the deep-rooted truths of our homelands. “Here are stories that blaze like wildfires, with characters who made me laugh and broke my heart.”—Sandra Cisneros WINNER OF THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARD • FINALIST FOR THE STORY PRIZE • FINALIST FOR THE PEN/ROBERT W. BINGHAM PRIZE FOR DEBUT SHORT STORY COLLECTION Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s magnetic story collection breathes life into her Latina characters of indigenous ancestry and the land they inhabit in the American West. Against the remarkable backdrop of Denver, Colorado—a place that is as fierce as it is exquisite—these women navigate the land the way they navigate their lives: with caution, grace, and quiet force. In “Sugar Babies,” ancestry and heritage are hidden inside the earth but tend to rise during land disputes. “Any Further West” follows a sex worker and her daughter as they leave their ancestral home in southern Colorado only to find a foreign and hostile land in California. In “Tomi,” a woman leaves prison and finds herself in a gentrified city that is a shadow of the one she remembers from her childhood. And in the title story, “Sabrina & Corina,” a Denver family falls into a cycle of violence against women, coming together only through ritual. Sabrina & Corina is a moving narrative of unrelenting feminine power and an exploration of the universal experiences of abandonment, heritage, and an eternal sense of home. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews • Library Journal “Sabrina & Corina isn’t just good, it’s masterful storytelling. Fajardo-Anstine is a fearless writer: her women are strong and scarred witnesses of the violations of their homelands, their culture, their bodies; her plots turn and surprise, unerring and organic in their comprehensiveness; her characters break your heart, but you keep on going because you know you are in the hands of a master. Her stories move through the heart of darkness and illuminate it with the soul of truth.”—Julia Alvarez, author of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents “[A] powerhouse debut . . . stylistically superb, with crisp dialogue and unforgettable characters, Sabrina & Corina introduces an impressive new talent to American letters.”—Rigoberto González, NBC News

Woman of Light
Woman of Light

Author: Kali Fajardo-Anstine

Publisher: One World

Published: 2022-06-07

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0525511342

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A “dazzling, cinematic, intimate, lyrical” (Roxane Gay) epic of betrayal, love, and fate that spans five generations of an Indigenous Chicano family in the American West, from the author of the National Book Award finalist Sabrina & Corina “Sometimes you just step into a book and let it wash over you, like you’re swimming under a big, sparkling night sky.”—Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere and Everything I Never Told You A PHENOMENAL BOOK CLUB PICK AND AN AUDACIOUS BOOK CLUB PICK • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Book Riot There is one every generation, a seer who keeps the stories. Luz “Little Light” Lopez, a tea leaf reader and laundress, is left to fend for herself after her older brother, Diego, a snake charmer and factory worker, is run out of town by a violent white mob. As Luz navigates 1930s Denver, she begins to have visions that transport her to her Indigenous homeland in the nearby Lost Territory. Luz recollects her ancestors’ origins, how her family flourished, and how they were threatened. She bears witness to the sinister forces that have devastated her people and their homelands for generations. In the end, it is up to Luz to save her family stories from disappearing into oblivion. Written in Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s singular voice, the wildly entertaining and complex lives of the Lopez family fill the pages of this multigenerational western saga. Woman of Light is a transfixing novel about survival, family secrets, and love—filled with an unforgettable cast of characters, all of whom are just as special, memorable, and complicated as our beloved heroine, Luz. LONGLISTED FOR THE JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE • LONGLISTED FOR THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION

Here's to You, Jesusa!
Here's to You, Jesusa!

Author: Elena Poniatowska

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2002-11-26

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0142001228

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A remarkable novel that uniquely melds journalism with fiction, by Elena Poniatowska, the recipient of the prestigious 2013 Cervantes Prize Jesusa is a tough, fiery character based on a real working-class Mexican woman whose life spanned some of the seminal events of early twentieth-century Mexican history. Having joined a cavalry unit during the Mexican Revolution, she finds herself at the Revolution's end in Mexico City, far from her native Oaxaca, abandoned by her husband and working menial jobs. So begins Jesusa's long history of encounters with the police and struggles against authority. Mystical yet practical, undaunted by hardship, Jesusa faces the obstacles in her path with gritty determination. Here in its first English translation, Elena Poniatowska's rich, sensitive, and compelling blend of documentary and fiction provides a unique perspective on history and the place of women in twentieth-century Mexico.

A Dream Called Home
A Dream Called Home

Author: Reyna Grande

Publisher: Washington Square Press

Published: 2019-07-02

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1501171437

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“Here is a life story so unbelievable, it could only be true.” —Sandra Cisneros, bestselling author of The House on Mango Street From bestselling author of the remarkable memoir The Distance Between Us comes an inspiring account of one woman’s quest to find her place in America as a first-generation Latina university student and aspiring writer determined to build a new life for her family one fearless word at a time. As an immigrant in an unfamiliar country, with an indifferent mother and abusive father, Reyna had few resources at her disposal. Taking refuge in words, Reyna’s love of reading and writing propels her to rise above until she achieves the impossible and is accepted to the University of California, Santa Cruz. Although her acceptance is a triumph, the actual experience of American college life is intimidating and unfamiliar for someone like Reyna, who is now estranged from her family and support system. Again, she finds solace in words, holding fast to her vision of becoming a writer, only to discover she knows nothing about what it takes to make a career out of a dream. Through it all, Reyna is determined to make the impossible possible, going from undocumented immigrant of little means to “a fierce, smart, shimmering light of a writer” (Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild); a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist whose “power is growing with every book” (Luis Alberto Urrea, Pultizer Prize finalist); and a proud mother of two beautiful children who will never have to know the pain of poverty and neglect. Told in Reyna’s exquisite, heartfelt prose, A Dream Called Home demonstrates how, by daring to pursue her dreams, Reyna was able to build the one thing she had always longed for: a home that would endure.

Eat the Mouth That Feeds You
Eat the Mouth That Feeds You

Author: Carribean Fragoza

Publisher: City Lights Books

Published: 2021-03-30

Total Pages: 92

ISBN-13: 0872868354

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WINNER OF THE WHITING AWARD PEN AMERICA LITERARY FINALIST Recommended by Héctor Tobar as an essential Los Angeles book in the New York Times. Carribean Fragoza's debut collection of stories reside in the domestic surreal, featuring an unusual gathering of Latinx and Chicanx voices from both sides of the U.S./Mexico border, and universes beyond. "Eat the Mouth That Feeds You is an accomplished debut with language that has the potential to affect the reader on a visceral level, a rare and significant achievement from a forceful new voice in American literature."—Kali Fajardo-Anstine, New York Times Book Review, and author of Sabrina and Corina Carribean Fragoza's imperfect characters are drawn with a sympathetic tenderness as they struggle against circumstances and conditions designed to defeat them. A young woman returns home from college, only to pick up exactly where she left off: a smart girl in a rundown town with no future. A mother reflects on the pain and pleasures of being inexorably consumed by her small daughter, whose penchant for ingesting grandma's letters has extended to taking bites of her actual flesh. A brother and sister watch anxiously as their distraught mother takes an ax to their old furniture, and then to the backyard fence, until finally she attacks the family’s beloved lime tree. Victories are excavated from the rubble of personal hardship, and women's wisdom is brutally forged from the violence of history that continues to unfold on both sides of the US-Mexico border. "Eat the Mouth that Feeds You renders the feminine grotesque at its finest."—Myriam Gurba, author of Mean "Eat the Mouth that Feeds You will establish Fragoza as an essential and important new voice in American fiction."—Héctor Tobar, author of The Barbarian Nurseries "Fierce and feminist, Eat the Mouth That Feeds You is a soul-quaking literary force."—Dontaná McPherson-Joseph, The Foreword, *Starred Review ". . . a work of power and a darkly brilliant talisman that enlarges in necessary ways the feminist, Latinx, and Chicanx canons."—Wendy Ortiz, Alta Magazine "Fragoza's surreal and gothic stories, focused on Latinx, Chicanx, and immigrant women's voices, are sure to surprise and move readers."—Zoe Ruiz, The Millions "This collection of visceral, often bone-chilling stories centers the liminal world of Latinos in Southern California while fraying reality at its edges. Full of horror and wonder."—Kirkus Reviews, *Starred Review "Fragoza's debut collection delivers expertly crafted tales of Latinx people trying to make sense of violent, dark realities. Magical realism and gothic horror make for effective stylistic entryways, as Fragoza seamlessly blurs the lines between the corporeal and the abstract."—Publishers Weekly "The magic realism of Eat the Mouth that Feeds You is thoroughly worked into the fabric of the stories themselves . . . a wonderful debut."—Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World

Women Unsilenced
Women Unsilenced

Author: Jeanne Sarson

Publisher: FriesenPress

Published: 2021-08-31

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 1525593242

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Women Unsilenced explores the impact of unthinkable violence committed against women and girls through multiple perspectives—women’s recall of life-threatening ordeals of torture, human trafficking, and organized crime, society’s failure to recognize and address such crimes, and close examinations of how justice, health, political, and social systems perpetuate revictimizing trauma. Written by retired public health nurses who include their own experiences helped give voice and understanding to women who have been silenced. This book discloses their “underground” caring work and offers “kitchen table” research and insights, using women’s storytelling on multiple platforms to educate readers on the unimaginable layers of perpetrators’ modus operandi of violence, manipulation, and deceit. At times raw, painful, and shocking, this book is an important resource for those who have survived such crimes; professionals who support those victimized by torturers and traffickers; police, legal professionals, criminologists, human rights activists, and educators alike. It reveals how healing and claiming one’s relationship with/to/for Self is possible.

Living on the Borderlines
Living on the Borderlines

Author: Melissa Michal

Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY

Published: 2019-02-12

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 1936932474

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“Michal’s debut is thoughtful and generous, capturing the fraught experience of being Native American in the modern U.S.” —Publishers Weekly Both on and off the rez, characters contend with identity as contemporary Haudenosaunee peoples; the stories “cross bloodlines, heart lines, and cultural lines, powerfully charting what it is to be human in a world that works to divide us” (Susan Power, author of Sacred Wilderness). In Living on the Borderlines, intergenerational memory and trauma slip into everyday life: a teenager struggles to understand her grandmother’s silences, a man contemplates what it means to preserve tradition in the wake of the “disappearing Indian” myth, and an older woman challenges her town’s prejudice while uniting an unlikely family. With these stories, debut writer Melissa Michal weaves together an understated and contemplative collection exploring what it means to be Indigenous. “A beautiful window into understanding Indigenous worldviews . . . This book is an unapologetic contemporary perspective of the truth of healing through Indigenous storytelling.” —Sarah Eagle Heart, CEO of Native Americans in Philanthropy “Enlightening and thought-provoking, Michal’s stories are a pleasure to read and absorb.” —Booklist “Melissa Michal writes . . . with a power that will make you want to read and reread these stories.” —Brooklyn Rail “A hauntingly beautiful collection of stories of contemporary women and girls who live in the spaces between the reservations and traditional Indigenous territories and rural and urban communities . . . a stunning achievement.” —Nikki Dragone, visiting assistant professor of Native American studies, Dickinson College

A Place Where the Sea Remembers
A Place Where the Sea Remembers

Author: Sandra Benitez

Publisher: Coffee House Press

Published: 2013-04-01

Total Pages: 115

ISBN-13: 1566892848

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Winner, Discover Great New Writers Award. Winner, Minnesota Book Award for Fiction. "Profound.... a quietly stunning work that leaves soft tracks in the heart."--The Washington Post BookWorld "Merits placement beside some of the mesmerizing new literature with its roots in Latin America."--The New York Times Book Review

Gods of Want
Gods of Want

Author: K-Ming Chang

Publisher: One World

Published: 2023-06-20

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0593241606

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Startling stories center the bodies, memories, myths, and relationships of Asian American women in “a voracious, probing collection, proof of how exhilarating the short story can be” (The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice)—from the National Book Award “5 Under 35” honoree and author of Bestiary “Wise, energetic, funny, and wild, Gods of Want displays a boundless imagination anchored by the weight of ancestors and history.”—Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of Sabrina & Corina and Woman of Light WINNER OF THE LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Them, Book Riot In “Auntland,” a steady stream of aunts adjust to American life by sneaking surreptitious kisses from women at temple, buying tubs of vanilla ice cream to prepare for citizenship tests, and hatching plans to name their daughters “Dog.” In “The Chorus of Dead Cousins,” ghost-cousins cross space, seas, and skies to haunt their live-cousin, wife to a storm chaser. In “Xífù,” a mother-in-law tortures a wife in increasingly unsuccessful attempts to rid the house of her. In “Mariela,” two girls explore one another’s bodies for the first time in the belly of a plastic shark, while in “Virginia Slims,” a woman from a cigarette ad comes to life. And in “Resident Aliens,” a former slaughterhouse serves as a residence to a series of widows, each harboring her own calamitous secrets. With each tale, K-Ming Chang gives us her own take on a surrealism that mixes myth and migration, corporeality and ghostliness, queerness and the quotidian. Stunningly told in her feminist fabulist style, these are uncanny stories peeling back greater questions of power and memory.

Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self
Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self

Author: Danielle Evans

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2010-09-23

Total Pages: 153

ISBN-13: 1101443472

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Introducing a new star of her generation, an electric debut story collection about mixed-race and African-American teenagers, women, and men struggling to find a place in their families and communities. When Danielle Evans's short story "Virgins" was published in The Paris Review in late 2007, it announced the arrival of a major new American short story writer. Written when she was only twenty-three, Evans's story of two black, blue-collar fifteen-year-old girls' flirtation with adulthood for one night was startling in its pitch-perfect examination of race, class, and the shifting terrain of adolescence. Now this debut short story collection delivers on the promise of that early story. In "Harvest," a college student's unplanned pregnancy forces her to confront her own feelings of inadequacy in comparison to her white classmates. In "Jellyfish," a father's misguided attempt to rescue a gift for his grown daughter from an apartment collapse magnifies all he doesn't know about her. And in "Snakes," the mixed-race daughter of intellectuals recounts the disastrous summer she spent with her white grandmother and cousin, a summer that has unforeseen repercussions in the present. Striking in their emotional immediacy, the stories in Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self are based in a world where inequality is reality but where the insecurities of adolescence and young adulthood, and the tensions within family and the community, are sometimes the biggest complicating forces in one's sense of identity and the choices one makes.