Born in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas, independent scholar and creative writer Gloria Anzaldua was an internationally acclaimed cultural theorist. As the author of Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza, Anzaldua played a major role in shaping contemporary Chicano/a and lesbian/queer theories and identities. As an editor of three anthologies, including the groundbreaking This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, she played an equally vital role in developing an inclusionary, multicultural feminist movement. A versatile author, Anzaldua published poetry, theoretical essays, short stories, autobiographical narratives, interviews, and children's books. Her work, which has been included in more than 100 anthologies to date, has helped to transform academic fields including American, Chicano/a, composition, ethnic, literary, and women's studies.
This reader-which provides a representative sample of the poetry, prose, fiction, and experimental autobiographical writing that Anzaldua produced during her thirty-year career-demonstrates the breadth and philosophical depth of her work. While the reader contains much of Anzaldua's published writing (including several pieces now out of print), more than half the material has never before been published. This newly available work offers fresh insights into crucial aspects of Anzaldua's life and career, including her upbringing, education, teaching experiences, writing practice and aesthetics, lifelong health struggles, and interest in visual art, as well as her theories of disability, multiculturalism, pedagogy, and spiritual activism. The pieces are arranged chronologically; each one is preceded by a brief introduction. The collection includes a glossary of Anzaldua's key terms and concepts, a timeline of her life, primary and secondary bibliographies, and a detailed index.
Industry Reviews
"The Gloria Anzaldua Reader samples the bold life-work of a woman whose aims were to relieve suffering and to envision a decolonizing social affinity capable of uniting humanity in love." Chela Sandoval, author of Methodology of the Oppressed "AnaLouise Keating's compilation of Gloria Anzaldua's writings provides a service to scholars, and it is a joy to read Gloria's voice, steeped in 'shaman aesthetics' that impel and move us to radical action. Her impact on various domains, including academic fields such as border studies, women's studies, and American studies, is longlasting and profound."--Norma E. Cantu, University of Texas, San Antonio, founder of the Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldua "This reader made me see and love Anzaldua anew. Her words have always moved me at a deep aesthetic and intellectual level, and this reader challenged my thinking about identities and representation even more profoundly. Reading the previously unpublished works alongside those that are so familiar was like finding an undiscovered passageway in a house I know well: transformative."--Suzanne Bost, author of Encarnacion: Illness and Body Politics in Chicana Feminist Literature Keating collects poems, essays, prose and commentaries by Anzaldua, revealing the public figure the pathbreaking queer Chicana writer as well as a sensual and deeply spiritual iconoclast. Anzaldua's voice emerges defiant, mercenary, passionate and unapologetic...The book is punctuated by Anzaldua's simple drawings, exercises in deconstruction and reconstruction of identity. Her writings capturing her relentless fight to avoid being stereotyped and to empower women of color within and without academia are rich and various, exploring everything from gender, memory and oppression to sex in the afterlife. Publisher's Weekly, 12th October 2010 "The Reader does a good job of offering a wide range of Anzaldua's writings, from her most famous and well-loved essays that appeared in the seminal Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza to never-before-published poems, experimental fiction, interviews, e-mail communications, and unfinished pieces. Anzaldua was a notorious perfectionist, sometimes revising essays and stories until an editor had to yank them from her hands. Still, this selection would've made Anzaldua proud." - The Texas Obsever
