The Life, Literature and Legacy of Luis J. Rodríguez - by Josephine Metcalf & Ben Olguín (Hardcover)

About the Book

An authoritative anthology on Luis Rodríguez's life and works, offering a range of perspectives on his many different accomplishments and activities.

Book Synopsis

Luis Rodríguez is a prominent Latinx poet, memoirist and activist renowned for his candid visceral accounts of urban working-class life that includes youth gang violence, incarceration and drug abuse, gruelling factory work and union organising activities and collective approaches to redemption and political empowerment, which have resonated across multiple communities in the United States and abroad. Accordingly, whilst Rodríguez has been the focus of some critical scholarship, huge segments of his life, work and legacy remain unexamined. This anthology has commissioned new and unique critical essays and reflections on Rodríguez's life and works, putting forward new ideas about bringing the voices of 'barrio organic intellectuals' to the fore. The anthology deliberately includes traditional academics as well as more public intellectuals and creative writers from across Europe and the Americas to reflect Rodriguez's own diverse outputs as a prisoner author and activist.

Review Quotes

Luis J. Rodríguez's work offers a playbook for how to engage in resistance in these troubled times. This collection of scholarly and literary essays reveals his activism as that of a Chicano 'organic intellectual' in the tradition of Antonio Gramsci who challenges the US's political, cultural and material hegemony.--Avelardo Valdez, University of Southern California

The Life, Literature and Legacy of Luis J. Rodríguez: In the Long Run is the most comprehensive overview, critical assessment and sustained study of the renowned former gang member, pinto author, barrio intellectual and critical humanist-philosopher. It encompasses perspectives that account for the significance of his literary impact, his praxis-oriented politics, critical reflections on him by people who've known Luis for decades, analysis of the transformation of his once hyper masculinist worldview, pedagogical approaches to Rodriguez's life story and prison literature, his impact as a publisher, and original new work. In the depth and range of critical perspectives included here, Metcalf and Olguín make a major contribution and set a new standard for US literary history and author studies, community studies and intellectual biographies.--Louis Mendoza, Arizona State University