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Prieta Is Dreaming: A cuentos-novela
A generative, genre-bending collection of nineteen intertwined stories by legendary writer, theorist, and activist Gloria E. Anzaldúa.
Best known for Borderlands/La The New Mestiza (1987), Gloria E. Anzaldúa was also a prolific fiction writer. Prieta Is Dreaming, a speculative novel-in-stories, follows the precocious Prieta from her childhood in South Texas to college and beyond as she tries to find her way in the world. Imbued with supernatural powers, Prieta traverses time, changes form, explores her desires, and defies convention. Started in the 1970s and revised up until Anzaldúa's death in 2004, Prieta Is Dreaming comes as a revelation, affirming Anzaldúa's place at the forefront of contemporary feminist, queer, and border theory, while transforming what we think about both her writing and ourselves. In these nineteen intertwined stories, we find some of Anzaldúa's most adventurous, inspired ideas about gender, sexuality, and the very nature of existence—as well as a character, la Prieta, as bold and memorable as the book itself.
Best known for Borderlands/La The New Mestiza (1987), Gloria E. Anzaldúa was also a prolific fiction writer. Prieta Is Dreaming, a speculative novel-in-stories, follows the precocious Prieta from her childhood in South Texas to college and beyond as she tries to find her way in the world. Imbued with supernatural powers, Prieta traverses time, changes form, explores her desires, and defies convention. Started in the 1970s and revised up until Anzaldúa's death in 2004, Prieta Is Dreaming comes as a revelation, affirming Anzaldúa's place at the forefront of contemporary feminist, queer, and border theory, while transforming what we think about both her writing and ourselves. In these nineteen intertwined stories, we find some of Anzaldúa's most adventurous, inspired ideas about gender, sexuality, and the very nature of existence—as well as a character, la Prieta, as bold and memorable as the book itself.
424 pages, Hardcover
Published November 1, 2025
About the author
Gloria E. Anzaldúa
45 books827 followersGloria E. Anzaldúa was a scholar of Chicana cultural theory, feminist theory, and queer theory. She loosely based her best-known book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, on her life growing up on the Mexican-Texas border and incorporated her lifelong feelings of social and cultural marginalization into her work.
When she was eleven, her family relocated to Hargill, Texas. Despite feeling discriminated against as a sixth-generation Tejana and as a female, and despite the death of her father from a car accident when she was fourteen, Anzaldúa still obtained her college education. In 1968, she received a B.A. in English, Art, and Secondary Education from Pan American University, and an M.A. in English and Education from the University of Texas at Austin. While in Austin, she joined politically active cultural poets and radical dramatists such as Ricardo Sanchez, and Hedwig Gorski.
After obtaining a Bachelor of Arts in English from the then Pan American University (now University of Texas-Pan American), Anzaldúa worked as a preschool and special education teacher. In 1977, she moved to California, where she supported herself through her writing, lectures, and occasional teaching stints about feminism, Chicano studies, and creative writing at San Francisco State University, the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Florida Atlantic University, among other universities.
(from Wikipedia)
See also: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/onlin...
When she was eleven, her family relocated to Hargill, Texas. Despite feeling discriminated against as a sixth-generation Tejana and as a female, and despite the death of her father from a car accident when she was fourteen, Anzaldúa still obtained her college education. In 1968, she received a B.A. in English, Art, and Secondary Education from Pan American University, and an M.A. in English and Education from the University of Texas at Austin. While in Austin, she joined politically active cultural poets and radical dramatists such as Ricardo Sanchez, and Hedwig Gorski.
After obtaining a Bachelor of Arts in English from the then Pan American University (now University of Texas-Pan American), Anzaldúa worked as a preschool and special education teacher. In 1977, she moved to California, where she supported herself through her writing, lectures, and occasional teaching stints about feminism, Chicano studies, and creative writing at San Francisco State University, the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Florida Atlantic University, among other universities.
(from Wikipedia)
See also: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/onlin...
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 23, 2026
I am convinced that I won't come across another book as transformative, raw, unique and honest as Prieta is Dreaming. This book won't be for everyone but it is definitely for me, let that be my warning for the explicit detail in which she describes her sexual experiences... Her attention to the smallest details and sensations when recounting her life stories is mesmerizing...
This is my perfect genre that she's created, a mix of autohistoria with fiction?!! "When you read fiction you enter its reality. When it's compelling enough it will enter your reality."
Also the sprinkling of Spanish words and phrases throughout beautifully captures the bilingual experience, some things are just better said in another language. Meanwhile, every chapter has it's own glossary of Spanish words and phrases used to make it accessible to everyone.
I feel honored to be the 2nd review here for this masterpiece, my brain has been rewired for what is now possible in literature... this book swallowed me whole and then spit me out changed
This is my perfect genre that she's created, a mix of autohistoria with fiction?!! "When you read fiction you enter its reality. When it's compelling enough it will enter your reality."
Also the sprinkling of Spanish words and phrases throughout beautifully captures the bilingual experience, some things are just better said in another language. Meanwhile, every chapter has it's own glossary of Spanish words and phrases used to make it accessible to everyone.
I feel honored to be the 2nd review here for this masterpiece, my brain has been rewired for what is now possible in literature... this book swallowed me whole and then spit me out changed
November 13, 2025
"No, I know it does matter because we have to live by the fictions of this reality, and these fictions need to be consensual" (325).
Firstly, I have to extend a warm thank you to my professor, Dr. Zaytoun, for giving me a copy of the book that she poured so much labor, time, and love into. This book exists not only because of Anzaldua's own genius, but also due to the tireless efforts of the scholars that continue to compile, edit, and present her work.
This book is one of the projects that will stick with me for a long time. Anzaldua remains one of the most impressive modern writers to me, as she contains multitudes. These stories are told in such accessible language, but to gauge them as simple, or even easy to describe, or to draw conclusions from, or be sure of your own feelings on, would be a mistake that I do not want to dream of making. Her fiction has a way of contextualizing her own beliefs in an easily digestible form. They always remain in conversation with her philosophy, her politics, and her view of art. Her characters complicate subjectivity and the artist's role in transmitting experience. What is any story but a crack between worlds?
9.4/10. We will see if my rating changes when I confront the story later in life, perhaps as a being entirely different from the one that encountered it for the first time.
Firstly, I have to extend a warm thank you to my professor, Dr. Zaytoun, for giving me a copy of the book that she poured so much labor, time, and love into. This book exists not only because of Anzaldua's own genius, but also due to the tireless efforts of the scholars that continue to compile, edit, and present her work.
This book is one of the projects that will stick with me for a long time. Anzaldua remains one of the most impressive modern writers to me, as she contains multitudes. These stories are told in such accessible language, but to gauge them as simple, or even easy to describe, or to draw conclusions from, or be sure of your own feelings on, would be a mistake that I do not want to dream of making. Her fiction has a way of contextualizing her own beliefs in an easily digestible form. They always remain in conversation with her philosophy, her politics, and her view of art. Her characters complicate subjectivity and the artist's role in transmitting experience. What is any story but a crack between worlds?
9.4/10. We will see if my rating changes when I confront the story later in life, perhaps as a being entirely different from the one that encountered it for the first time.
August 23, 2026
Really incredible. Felt like I got dropped into Anzaldúa’s mind and stayed there for a while. Left me with much to reflect on about sexuality, coming of age, safety, and our relationship to the beings around us.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews