Mujer de Luz / Woman of Light - by Kali Fajardo-Anstine (Paperback)

About the Book

"1890: When Desiderya Lopez, The Sleepy Prophet, finds an abandoned infant on the banks of an arroyo, she recognizes something in his spirit and brings him home. Pidre will go on to become a famous showman in the Anglo West whose main act, Simodecea, is Pidre's fearless, sharpshooting wife, who wrangles bears as part of his show. 1935: Luz "Little Light" Lopez and her brother Diego work the carnival circuit in downtown Denver. Luz, is a tea leaf reader, and Diego is a snake charmer. One day, a pale-faced woman in white fur asks Luz for a reading, calling her by a name that only her brother knows. Later that night at a party downtown, Luz sees Diego dancing with this pale-faced woman, which results in a brawl with the local white supremacist group. Diego leaves town for cover and Luz is left trying to get justice for her brother and family. Merging two multi-generational storylines in Colorado, this is a novel of family love, secrets, and survival. With Fajardo-Anstine's immense capacity to render characters and paint vivid life, set against the Sange de Cristo mountians, Woman of Light is full of the weight, richness, and complexities of mixed blood and mica clay. It delights like an Old Western, and inspires the hope embedded in histories yet-told"--]cProvided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

De la mano de la autora de Sabrina y Corina, finalista del National Book Award, nos llega una historia épica de traición, amor y destino que abarca cinco generaciones de una familia chicana e indígena en el oeste de los Estados Unidos.

En cada generación hay una vidente que mantiene las historias con vida.

Luz "Little Light" Lopez, lectora de hojas de té y lavandera, debe valerse por sí misma cuando su hermano Diego, encantador de serpientes y obrero fabril, tiene que huir de la ciudad a causa de una turba violenta de supremacistas blancos. Mientras Luz se abre camino en el Denver de los años treinta, empieza a tener visiones que la transportan a la tierra indígena donde nació la Tierra Perdida. Luz presencia los orígenes de sus ancestros, cómo floreció su familia y cómo se vio amenazada. Atestigua las fuerzas siniestras que han devastado su pueblo y sus tierras durante generaciones. Al final, depende de ella salvar de las garras del olvido las historias de su familia.

Con la voz singular de Kali Fajardo-Anstine, las entretenidas y complicadas vidas de los Lopez llenan las páginas de esta saga multigeneracional. Mujer de luz es una novela cautivadora sobre la supervivencia, los secretos de familia y el amor, poblada por un reparto de personajes inolvidables, cada uno tan especial, memorable y complejo como nuestra querida heroína, Luz.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

A dazzling 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.

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.

About the Author

Kali Fajardo-Anstine es originaria de Denver, Colorado. Es autora de Sabrina y Corina, libro finalista del National Book Award, del PEN / Robert W. Bingham Prize, del LaVerne Harrell Fiction Prize, del Story Prize, del Saroyan Prize y ganador de un American Book Award. También fue galardonada con el Addison M. Metcalf Award por la American Academy of Arts and Letters. Su obra ha sido reconocida con el Denver Mayor's Global Award for Excellence in Arts & Culture y el Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association Reading the West Award. Ha escrito para el New York Times, Harper's Bazaar, ELLE, Oprah Daily, The American Scholar, Boston Review, entre otros, y ha recibido becas de MacDowell, Yaddo, Hedgebrook y Tin House. Recibió su MFA en la Universidad de Wyoming y trabajó más de una década como librera independiente en Westside Books, en el norte de Denver. Ha vivido por todo el país, desde Durnago, Colorado, hasta Key West, Florida, y fue invitada a impartir la 2022-23 Endowed Chair in Creative Writing en la Universidad Estatal de Texas.

Kali Fajardo-Anstine is from Denver, Colorado. Her fiction has appeared in The American Scholar, Boston Review, Bellevue Literary Review, The Idaho Review, Southwestern American Literature, and elsewhere. Kali has received fellowships from MacDowell Colony, the Corporation of Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and Hub City Press. She received her MFA from the University of Wyoming and has lived across the country, from Durango, Colorado, to Key West, Florida.