The Gloria Anzalda Reader

Keating collects poems, essays, prose and commentaries by Anzaldúa, revealing the public figure—the pathbreaking queer Chicana writer—as well as a sensual and deeply spiritual iconoclast. Anzaldúa’s voice emerges—defiant, mercenary, passionate and unapologetic—as she writes her seminal Borderlands/La frontera while teaching in Vermont, an environment so alien it brought her closer to her roots; as she becomes one of the first to teach Chicano literature to her students; as she compiles the classic feminist anthology This Bridge Called My Back . The book is punctuated by Anzaldúa’s simple drawings, exercises in deconstruction and reconstruction of identity. Her writings capturing her relentless fight to avoid being stereotyped and to empower women of color within and without academia are rich and various, exploring everything from gender, memory and oppression to sex in the afterlife. (Jan.)