Trini

by Estela Portillo Trambley

The sole novel of beloved Chicana author Estela Portillo Trambley is an important rediscovery. This classic Mexican American coming-of-age story was written in the 1980s during the rich burgeoning of Latino literature that also brought us such writers as Sandra Cisneros and Denise Chavez. Trini is the captivating story one girl’s journey across borders and into womanhood. Born in the rural Tarahumaran region of Mexico, Trini loses her mother at an early age and shares her family’s struggle to squeeze a living out of her beautiful but inhospitable land. Driven by an impossible love and by her desire for a better life, Trini travels through the Mexican borderlands, from indigenous villages to growing cities, where she encounters both exciting challenges and the harsh realities of violence and betrayal. As a young woman, she finally crosses the border into the United States to pursue her dreams of independence, land ownership and American citizenship for her children. Trini is a novel distinguished by the richness and beauty of its language and by its rare depiction of life in the borderlands of Mexico and New Mexico in the 1940s and 1950s. Most remarkable of all is its portrait of a sensitive and courageous young Chicana woman, whose quiet heroism resonates from every page. Trini is a vital novel of the Mexican American experience, appropriate for young adults as well as adult readers. Here restored to print with a new foreword Helena Maria Viramontes, it is bound to take its rightful place among the contemporary classics of multicultural American literature. Estela Portillo Trambley , the granddaughter of Mexican immigrants, founded the first Hispanic Theatre in El Paso, was a beloved teacher and radio show host and received a New York Shakespeare Festival award in a competition among Hispanic playwrights. Her Sor Juana and Other Plays earned her widespread acclaim.

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

ESTELA PORTILLO TRAMBLEY was a writer and award-winning playwright from El Paso, Texas. She was the granddaughter of Mexican immigrants, and graduated with a degree in English literature from the University of Texas-El Paso. She taught in the El Paso public school system, and was one of the founders of Los Pobres, the first Hispanic Theater in El Paso. Trambley also hosted a local political radio talk show called Stella Says in Texas. Her play, Blacklight won second place in the 1985 New York Shakespeare Festival's Hispanic American playwright's competition. In 1986, she was inducted into the El Paso Woman's Hall of Fame, and was named Author of the Pass by the El Paso Herald Post in 1990. The publication of Sor Juana and Other Plays brought her widespread critical acclaim and national attention. Trini is her only novel. Trambley passed away in December of 1999 at age 72, and her papers are kept in the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Colletion at the University of Texas at Austin.

(from http://www.feministpress.org/books/es...)

Reviews

[Harry Brake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Respect, struggle, spirituality, perseverance, faith, strength and SO MUCH MORE is found in Estela
Portillo Trambley's novel! I admit, I struggled in the first third of the book and wondered if I would be able to stay through the intense details through the whole novel. Then something happened.

The bildungsroman that unfolded made you cringe, laugh, and feel pity so much, the emotions of a wide variety become touched. I still want to go back and discover the many locations I have never heard of in this text before. I love that original vocabulary from the Tarahumara as well as descriptions that it could not be interpreted as occurring anywhere but Mexico.

The beauty, depth, and ties to culture are rooted through every page and weave one of the most reflective spins on Mexico and the human experience.