Literary El Paso - by Marcia Hatfield Daudistel (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The latest addition to the successful literary citieis series by Texas Christian University Press, Literary El Paso brings attention to the often overlooked extraordinary literary heritage of this city in far West Texas. El Paso is the largest metropolitan area along the U.S.-Mexico border and is geographically isolated from the rest of Texas. It is in this splendid isolation surrounded by mountains in the midst of the beautiful Chihuahuan Desert that many award-winning writers found their literary voices. Literary El Paso features bilingual selections to reflect the bi-cultural environment of the region and the state.

Daudistel uses her years of publishing experience in El Paso to gather the works of past, present, and emerging writers of the Borderlands. Historical essays, fiction, journalism, and poetry portray the colorful history and vibrant present of this city on the border through the works of sixty-three writers.

Once a backdrop to the Mexican Revolution, El Paso was also home to infamous outlaws. Historians C. L. Sonnichsen and Leon Metz write on the gunmen and lawmen of El Paso including John Wesley Hardin, Dallas Stoudenmire and Bass Outlaw. There are feature stories from award-winning journalists Ruben Salazar early in his newspaper career, Ramón Rentería with the last interview of poet Ricardo Sánchez, and Bryan Woolley on the 1966 University of Texas-El Paso Miners and lively South El Paso Street.

Many groundbreaking Chicano writers began their work in El Paso, such as José Antonio Burciaga, Abelardo Delgado, Estela Portillo Trambley, and Arturo Islas. The works of Tom Lea, Amado Muro, Dagoberto Gilb, Rick DeMarinis, Pat LittleDog, the inimitable word sketches of Elroy Bode, and the poetry of Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Pat Mora, and Bernice Love Wiggins, one of the first African American female poets published in Texas, explore the experience of life in El Paso.

In addition, previously unpublished works from John Rechy, Ray Gonzalez and Robert Seltzer are included. For the first time in the series, Literary El Paso features bilingual selections to reflect the bi-cultural environment of the region and the state.

Review Quotes

"...ultimately Literary El Paso provides what anyone looks for in such an extensive and varied collection: a montón of fun.--La Bloga

"In Literary El Paso, the newest anthology in the Literary Cities series from TCU Press, there's plenty to love and linger over, and some to skim on the long drive west... If one goal of a good anthology is to inspire further reading, Literary El Paso succeeds in adding half a dozen writers to my list... It showcases the stories, poetry and fiction of the many excellent Chicano writers to come out of El Paso... Sharing one rare setting--the same desert mountains, high schools, bridges, streets, shops, two countries, one river--the stories and poems in Literary El Paso at times share a similar voice--open, honest, often irreverent." --Texas Observer

"In Literary El Paso, Marcia Hatfield Daudistel has assembled a treasure trove of fine writing. Stories, essays, and poems meld into a collection of rich literature that also provides a unique history of a complex, colorful, and vibrant region, El Paso del Norte." --John Rechy, author of City of Night, The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez, and About My Life and the Kept Woman.