Bordering Fires: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Mexican and Chicana and Chicano Literature

by Cristina García (Editor)

As the descendants of Mexican immigrants have settled throughout the United States, a great literature has emerged, but its correspondances with the literature of Mexico have gone largely unobserved. In Bordering Fires, the first anthology to combine writing from both sides of the Mexican-U.S. border, Cristina Garc’a presents a richly diverse cross-cultural conversation. Beginning with Mexican masters such as Alfonso Reyes and Juan Rulfo, Garc’a highlights historic voices such as “the godfather of Chicano literature” Rudolfo Anaya, and Gloria Anzaldœa, who made a powerful case for language that reflects bicultural experience. From the fierce evocations of Chicano reality in Jimmy Santiago Baca’s Poem IX to the breathtaking images of identity in Coral Bracho’s poem “Fish of Fleeting Skin,” from the work of Carlos Fuentes to Sandra Cisneros, Ana Castillo to Octavio Paz, this landmark collection of fiction, essays, and poetry offers an exhilarating new vantage point on our continent–and on the best of contemporary literature.

Contents

Prelude:
Excerpt from The use of thought / Samuel Ramos

Early influences:
Major Aranda's hand / Alfonso Reyes
My cousin Agueda, and In the wet shadows / Ramón López Velarde
Excerpt from Pedro Páramo / Juan Rulfo
L.A. nocturne : the angels / Xavier Villaurrutia

Chicano/a voices I:
How to tame a wild tongue / Gloria Anzaldúa
India / Richard Rodriguez
Meditations on the South Valley: Poem IX / Jimmy Santiago Baca
B. Traven is alive and well in Cuernavaca / Rudolfo Anaya

Contemporary Mexican voices:
Excerpt from The death of Artemio Cruz / Carlos Fuentes
Introduction from Here's to you, Jesusa! / Elena Poniatowska
The day of the dead, and I speak of the city / Octavio Paz
Excerpt from The book of lamentations / Rosario Castellanos

Chicano/a voices 2:
Daddy with Chesterfields in a rolled up sleeve / Ana Castillo
Never marry a Mexican / Sandra Cisneros
Maria de Covina / Dagoberto Gilb
Excerpt from Crossing over : a Mexican family on the migrant trail / Rubén Martínez

New departures:
Hagiography of the apostate / Ignacio Padilla
Aunt Leonor, and Aunt Natalia / Ángeles Mastretta
Identity hour or, What photos would you take of the endless city / Carlos Monsiváis
Fish of fleeting skin / Coral Bracho

Genres: Short Stories, Anthologies, Poetry, Spanish Literature, Feminism, Fiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2006

About the author

After working for Time Magazine as a researcher, reporter, and Miami bureau chief, García turned to writing fiction. Her first novel, Dreaming in Cuban (1992), received critical acclaim and was a finalist for the National Book Award. She has since published her novels The Agüero Sisters (1997) and Monkey Hunting (2003), and has edited books of Cuban and other Latin American literature. Her fourth novel, A Handbook to Luck, was released in hardcover in 2007 and came out in paperback in April 2008.

Reviews

[Allison Wonderland · Rating 3 out of 5]

The chapter "How to Tame a Wild Tongue" by Gloria Anzaldua was fascinating. It indirectly explained why in the movie Napoleon Dynamite the Mexican guy who drove Napoleon to the dance says "Simon" when asked if he's "Pedro's cousin with all the sweet hook-ups." Originally, it seemed like an odd response, but now I know that simon means yes in the Pachuco dialect of Chicano Spanish. It's probably nothing you'd ever learn taking high school or college Spanish, because it is slang, but that's why I really liked this chapter.

(I have more to write about this book, but I don't have time right now. More later.)

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew going into it that it only contained samples of writing... But I was left wanting more! So my reading list grows ;)

[Mills College Library]

860.80972 B728 2006

[Morbid Swither · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the best anthology. Containing some exceptional and awesome entries for sure! I’m displeased by the number of instances long fictional prose works are excerpted. I also wished for this to shed more light into the obscure and onto the untranslated, but found it to be just a tad essentialist and remediate, with major poets really underrepresented, furthermore the poets who did find their way into this Reader got way too few pages commuted to them. What made this worth a read were the short stories, namely: “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldúa and “Hagiography of the Apostate” by Ignacio Padilla.

[Imelda · Rating 4 out of 5]

La única razón por la que le di cuatro estrellas es porque incluyeron un ensayo del insufrible acomplejado de Richard Rodríguez. No leí su ensayo. Me niego rotundamente a desperdiciar ni un segundo de mi vida leyendo las tonterías que escribe Rodríguez. De ahí en fuera todo muy bien, todos los otros autores son tremendamente buenos.

[Bethtub · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a mix of absolutely fantastic pieces and some bland trudging ones. The strong pieces are so great it's worth the few misses inside. Beautifully lingual (about language) through beautiful language and imagery.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a comprehensive collection of perspectives.

[Rafael]

Outstanding chapters:
Major Aranda's Hand
The Use of Thought
How to Tame a Wild Tongue
Maria de Covina
Hagiography of the Apostate

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Las antologIas son buenas guias a conocer nuevos libros, y después de ésta quiero leer ¨Hunger of Memory¨ de Richard Rodriguez.