The Gloria Anzaldua Reader

A collection of published and unpublished writings of the groundbreaking Chicana writer and self-described "chicana dyke-feminist, tejana patlache poet, writer and cultural theorist" Gloria Anzaldúa.

Publishers Weekly

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.)

Gloria Anzaldúa (1942–2004) was a visionary writer whose work was recognized with many honors, including the Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award, a Lambda literary award, the National Endowment for the Arts Fiction Award, and the Bode-Pearson Prize for Outstanding Contributions to American Studies. Her book Borderlands/La frontera was selected as one of the 100 Best Books of the Century by Hungry Mind Review and the Utne Reader. AnaLouise Keating, Professor of Women’s Studies at Texas Woman’s University, is the author of Women Reading, Women Writing: Self-Invention in Paula Gunn Allen, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Audre Lorde; editor of Anzaldúa’s Interviews/Entrevistas and EntreMundos/AmongWorlds: New Perspectives on Gloria Anzaldúa; and co-editor, with Anzaldúa, of this bridge we call home: radical visions for transformation.

AnaLouise Keating, Professor of Women’s Studies at Texas Woman’s University, is the author of Women Reading, Women Writing: Self-Invention in Paula Gunn Allen, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Audre Lorde; editor of Anzaldúa’s Interviews/Entrevistas and EntreMundos/AmongWorlds: New Perspectives on Gloria Anzaldúa; and co-editor, with Anzaldúa, of this bridge we call home: radical visions for transformation.