Category Archives: News

March 4, 2012 · 10:58 am

In the news: Librotraficantes in Arizona, Anaya, Valdes, Díaz

Arizona:

• The Librotraficante Caravan will kick off March 12 on its journey to distribute Latino-themed books that have been banned in Tucson classrooms. Aztec Muse founder Tony Diaz is spearheading the tour, which starts in Houston and hosts events during its stops in San Antonio, El Paso and Albuquerque and, finally, Tucson. The San Antonio event on March 13 will include Sandra Cisneros (right), Carmen Tafolla and Luis Alberto Urrea. The Tucson event on March 17 will feature Dagoberto Gilb and Helena Maria Viramontes. At each stop, the caravan will create Underground Libraries made up of the banned books.

Awards:

• Bless Me Ultima author Rudolfo Anaya, left, will receive a lifetime achievement award from the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. The ceremony takes place April 20 and coincides with the Los Angeles Festival of Books April 21-22.

• Books by Sergio Chejfec, Tomás Eloy Martínez, Juan José Saer, Moacyr Scliar and Enrique Vila-Matas made the 2012 Best Translated Books Award Longlist.

Book Festivals:

• The Tucson Festival of Books, which runs March 10-11, will include Monica Brown, Denise Chavez, Diana Gabaldon, Carmen Giménez Smith, Grace Pena Delgado, Sam Quinones, Alberto Alvaro Ríos, Sergio Troncoso and Luis Alberto Urrea, right, who will give the keynote address during the Author’s Table Dinner March 9.

Children’s Literature Conference:

• March 19 is the deadline for early registration for the National Latino Children’s Literature Conference, which takes place March 29-30 in Tuscaloosa, Ala. The event includes seminars on educational strategies, networking opportunities and a keynote address by authors Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Campoy.

Upcoming releases:

• Alisa Valdes, best known for her Dirty Girls Social Club series, plans to publish 100-page ebook romance “novelas” for $1.99 one a month starting with Billy, the Man in April. (Click on her “eRomance” page.)

• Pultizer Prize winner Junot Díaz is releasing a new book of short stories called This Is How You Lose Her on Sept. 11, according to The New York Times.

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February 19, 2012 · 12:56 pm

In the news: New books by Sáenz and Aira, plus Cisneros, García Márquez

New releases:

• Coming out this week: the young adult novel Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz, about the friendship between two teenage boys, and Varamo by César Aira, about the making of an epic poem by a Panamanian bureaucrat.

Latino scholars honored:

• Latino scholars Teófilo Ruiz and Ramón Saldívar were awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama.

Children’s books:

• Pam Muñoz Ryan’s When Marian Sang: The True Recital of Marian Anderson and Esperanza Rising and Antonio Skarmeta’s The Composition made USA Today’s 100 Greatest Books for Kids.

• Reading is Fundamental’s 2011-12 Multicultural Booklist includes books by Loretta Lopez, Alma Flor Ada, George Ancona and Gary Soto.

Other stories:

• The San Antonio Current ran an article about author Sandra Cisneros’ impact on the city, which she plans to leave.

• Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera inspired Carlos Campos’ latest fashion collection, according to the Los Angeles Times.

• A Toronto librarian found a letter that appeared to have been written by Jorge Luis Borges, reports the Canadian magazine Quill & Quire.

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January 31, 2012 · 7:57 pm

In the news: Arizona, awards, Mexico, Marquez, Saenz

Arizona:

• Wednesday will mark a National Day of Solidarity in which educators across the country are encouraged to teach the controversial Tucson, Ariz., school district curriculum – including Latino-themed books such as Occupied America. The district put away the books so it could still receive funding from the state, which has banned ethnic studies. Tucson teacher Curtis Acosta discussed the situation here.

• The Huffington Post wrote about Aztec Muse magazine’s Librotraficante caravan, which will distribute the banned books in Tucson in March.

• The Progressive magazine features several articles about the situation, with reactions from banned authors Ana Castillo, Junot Diaz and Dagoberto Gilb.

Awards:

• Books by Meg Medina and Bettina Restrepo were named to the 2011 Amelia Bloomer list for their feminist themes. Medina was honored for Tia Isa Wants a Car and Restrepo was awarded for Illegal.

• Congratulations to California-based writer Jennifer Torres, who won the Lee and Low New Voices Award for her book, Live at the Cielito Lindo. She received a publishing contract from the publisher.

• The 2011 Best Fiction for Young Adults list, chosen by the Young Adult Library Services Association, includes I Will Save You by Matt de la Peña, Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall and What Can(t) Wait by Ashley Hope Pérez.

Mexico:

• Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa and 170 other writers signed a letter published in the Mexican newspaper El Universal calling for the end of violence to journalists in that country, according to the BBC.

Author profiles:

• Nobel winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, left, talked to the Daily Sun about his return to journalism.

• Benjamin Alire Sáenz discussed his writing and painting to the El Paso Times. The article noted that Sáenz, as well as Marquez and Pat Mora, made the list of the top 50 most inspiring writers in the world by Poets & Writers magazine in 2010. Salvador Plascencia was also included.

• Slam poet Jessica Helen Lopez received a nice profile from the San Antonio Express-News before a recent performance there.

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January 23, 2012 · 8:50 pm

In the news: Awards, Arizona, Mexico and Mario Vargas Llosa

Awards:

It’s book award season! Several organizations have announced winners and nominations for the best of 2011:

• The American Library Association announced today the winners of the Pura Belpé Awards, given to children’s and young adult books that honor Latino culture. The Author Award winner was Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall. The Honor Books were Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck by Margarita Engle and Maximilian and the Mystery of the Guardian Angel: A Bilingual Lucha Libre Thriller by Xavier Garza.

The Illustrator Award Winner went to Diego Rivera: His World and Ours by Duncan Tonatiuh. The Honor Books were The Cazuela that the Farm Maiden Stirred, written by Samantha R. Vamos and illustrated by Rafael López, and Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match, written by Monica Brown and illustrated by Sara Palacios.

• Luis J. Rodriguez was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award in the autobiography category for his memoir, It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing. Aracelis Girmay, who is part Puerto Rican, received a nod in the poetry category for her book, Kingdom Animalia, which has already won the 2011 Isabella Gardner Poetry Award.

• Justin Torres‘s We the Animals will be one of five books vying for the NAACP Image Award’s Outstanding Literature Work – Debut Author.

• Diana Gabaldon’s short story “Lord John and the Plague of Zombies,” from the anthology Down These Strange Streets, earned her a Best Short Story nomination from the Edgar Awards by the Mystery Writers of America.

• Busboys and Poets bookstore, the progressive Washington D.C.-based bookstore, included several Latino-themed books in its Best of 2011 list: Pam Muñoz Ryan’s The Dreamer; Let’s Go See Papa!, by Lawrence Schimel, Alba Marina Rivera and Elisa Amado; the Spanish-language version of Howard Zinn’s classic A People’s History of the United States, La Otra Historia de los Estados Unidos; The Guatemala Reader by Greg Grandin, Deborah T. Levenson, Elizabeth Oglesby and News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media by Juan Gonzalez and Joseph Torres.

Arizona:

Aztec Muse magazine is starting a Libro Traficante Caravan to distribute books in Tucson, Arizona, after the school district put away many Latino books from classrooms to retain funding from the state, which has banned ethnic studies. For a great take on the topic, here’s Texas-based writer Beatriz Terrazas’ essay on the Mamiverse website.

Mexico:

Here’s an excellent NPR story about how Mexican artists, including poet Javier Sicilia, are using words and music to react to their country’s drug war.

Mario Vargas Llosa:

Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa, right, declined an offer to head the Cervantes Institute in Spain, which promotes Latin American culture, according to the Latin American Herald-Tribune.

 

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January 18, 2012 · 8:39 pm

In the news: Arizona, Bolaño and a story from Cuba

Arizona:

• Starting this week, several books by Latino authors can no longer be used in classes in the Tucson, Arizona, school district so the district could keep millions of dollars in funding after the state banned ethnic studies. The blog Remezcla profiles the books, including Occupied America: A History of Chicanos by Rodolfo F. Acuña and Critical Race Theory: An Introduction by Richard Delgado. (Héctor Tobar wrote about Acuña in the Los Angeles Times last year.) Salon, the online magazine, published a good overview about the issue. In this article from the Indian Country website, teachers and students talk about how the ban has affected them. The news was the topic of discussion between writers Dagoberto Gilb and S.J. Rivera on the Nuestra Palabra radio show, which you can find on its Facebook page.

Roberto Bolaño

• The New Yorker has a short story called “Labyrinth” by the late Roberto Bolaño in its current issue. The website included an interview with one of his editors, Willing Davidson, and includes a mention of Francisco Goldman.

Cuban refugess

• Here’s an interesting article from the Marin Independent-Journal about a woman who found out about her family’s heritage through Cuban author Carlos Eire’s 2010 book, Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy. NPR profiled Eire when the book first come out.

This post was updated to include a link to Bolaño’s short story.

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January 12, 2012 · 7:57 pm

New year, new books: What’s ahead for 2012

A new year brings a new batch of books to look forward to reading. Here’s a round-up of some upcoming titles by Latino authors coming in the first half of this year. Special thanks to The Millions website, where I got some of the tips.

• In February, Argentine writer César Aira will release Varamo, about a bureaucrat in Panama who unexpectedly writes an epic poem. The New Yorker ran an interesting interview with Aira’s translator, Chris Andrews, last year.

• Also in February, Benjamin Alire Saenz will release his young adult novel, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe about two teens who form an unlikely friendship.

• In April, Orange County Weekly editor Gustavo Arellano – known for his “Ask a Mexican!” column – will release Taco Nation, about America’s obsession with Mexican food. Sounds tasty.

• Roberto Bolaño must be the Tupac Shakur of Latino writers. He continues to publish books even after his death in 2003. His collection of stories, The Secret of Evil, will come out in April.

• Border Town: Crossing the Line is a Sweet Valley High-like series by Malín Alegría, author of the popular Estrella’s Quinceañera, about two teenage girls who live in fictional Dos Rios, Texas.

• Also in May, Sergio De La Pava’s A Naked Singularity will come out by the University of Chicago Press after a run as a self-published book. The comic novel focuses on a Brooklyn attorney who commits a crime.

• Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa will publish The Dream of the Celt, about Irish human rights activist Roger Casement, in June.

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January 9, 2012 · 7:43 pm

In the news: Stork, writer’s contests, Cisneros, Urrea

New releases:

• Irises, the newest book by Mexican-American writer Francisco X. Stork, was released earlier this month. The young adult book focuses on two young sisters grappling with their father’s death and their mother’s illness.

Contests:

• Speaking of Stork, writers can have their middle school or young adult book critiqued by the author if they win the Book Wish Foundation contest. Contestants must submit a 500-word essay by Feb. 1 based on Stork’s essay in the book, What You Wish For, a series of short stories and poems by prominent authors. The book, whose proceeds benefit refugee camps in Chad, also includes works by Sofia Quintero and Gary Soto, as well as Alexander McCall Smith, Meg Cabot and Joyce Carol Oates.

• Here’s a great opportunity for Latino writers who live in San Antonio: the city is looking for a poet laureate. Submissions must be turned in by Jan. 18.

Library News:

• Congratulations to San Francisco Public Library’s city librarian Luis Herrera, who was named Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year.

Writer’s workshops:

• Jan. 15 is the deadline to apply for a scholarship to the Las Dos Brujas Writers’ Workshop. The workshop takes place June 3-9 in Taos, New Mexico, and will feature Cristina García, Martín Espada and Denise Chávez.

• The Texas Observer published a terrific article about Sandra Cisneros’ Macondo Foundation, visiting Mexico.

New column:

• Luis Alberto Urrea, left, has a new column for Orion magazine. In a podcast of the column, he talks about an old job cleaning toilets.

 

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December 22, 2011 · 5:29 am

In the news: Best of 2011, La Casa Azul bookstore, World Book Night

Best of 2011

• Here’s some more Best of 2011 lists: Entertainment Weekly put Francisco Goldman’s Say Her Name on its Top 10 Fiction list. Barnes and Noble picked When Tito Loved Clara, by Jon Michaud, about a Dominican Republican woman trying to settle in New Jersey when her old lover returns.

• Sergio Troncoso’s From This Wicked Patch of Dust and Richard Yanez’s Cross Over Water both earned spots on the Southwest Books of the Year by the Pima County Library in Tucson, Arizona. Two books by Rudolfo Anaya made the list – La Llorona: The Crying Woman and Randy Lopez Goes Home: A Novel, as did the children’s book, Juan Verdades: The Man Who Couldn’t Tell a Lie / El hombre que no sabia mentir by Joe Hayes.

• Rigoberto Gonzalez made his list of the best Small Press books, including Chulito by Charles Rice-González.

Body art by Mia Roman. Photographed by Johnny Ramos.

Bookstores

• Congratulations to Aurora Anaya-Cerda, left, who plans to open La Casa Azul bookstore in East Harlem in the spring. Publisher’s Weekly and the New York Daily News wrote articles about the bookstore, which was funded through a donation drive.

World Book Night

• Junot Diaz’s awesome The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was chosen as one of 30 novels that will given out for World Book Night April 23. You can apply to be a book giver here.

New releases:

• All Yours, a paperback crime novel by Argentine Claudia Piñeiro, came out last week.

Interesting:

• In this article in The Guardian, Spanish novelist Lucía Etxebarria announced this week she would stop writing because she opposes the downloading of books. Brazilian Paulo Coehlo has taken a different view, allowing readers to download his books in some countries, according to this New York Times story published in the fall.

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December 11, 2011 · 11:35 am

In the News

• Year in Review: Junot Díaz and Justin Torres recommended their favorite books of 2011 to New York magazine, while Héctor Tobar and Torres gave their choices for the year’s best in Salon and Julia Alvarez revealed her picks to the Algonquin Books blog. Book editor Marcela Landres made her own best of 2011 list, including Outside the Bones by Lyn Di Iorio and Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall. The Washington Post cited Esmeralda Santiago’s Conquistadora and Justin Torres’s We the Animals as some of its favorite 2011 novels. But why stop at 2011? Dagoberto Gilb named his favorite books of all time in The Week magazine.

• New releases: A paperback of Purgatory by the late Tómas Eloy Martinez, who was born in Argentina and lived in Venezuala, was released last month.

• A library in honor of Mexican writer Juan Jose Arreola is being constructed in Mexico City, with the opening expected for spring 2012. The library organization Reforma posted some pictures of the building on their Facebook page.

• According to this BBC article, the remains of legendary Nobel winning poet Pablo Neruda, pictured at left, have been asked to be exhumed to see if he was poisoned.

• Luis Alberto Urrea appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered to talk about his latest novel, Queen of America, which he describes as his “Lady Gaga book.”

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December 2, 2011 · 7:59 am

In the news

• New releases: Fantasy mega-bestseller Diana Gabaldon, who is of Mexican-American and English descent, released her latest book, The Scottish Prisoner, on Tuesday.  Entertainment Weekly has a great interview in which she lists her favorite and not-so-favorite books. Also new on the bookshelves is Something Urgent I Have to Say to You: The Life and Works of William Carlos Williams, a biography of the poet, who was half-Puerto Rican, by Herbert Leibowitz.

• Year in Review: Two of The Hispanic Reader’s favorite books of the year, Héctor Tobar’s The Barbarian Nurseries and Francisco Goldman’s Say Her Name, were named to The New York Times’s 100 Notable Books of 2011. For its Best of 2011 list, Kirkus Reviews picked The Secret History of Costaguana by Columbian author Juan Gabriel Vásquez and We the Animals by Justin Torres. (Its teen list includes by If I Could Fly by Judith Ortiz Cofer and Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Martinez McCall.) Animals also made Amazon.com’s Best of 2011 Top Twenty list. Lorraine Lopez’s The Realm of Hungry Spirits was selected for Bookpage’s best list.

• Law: Nobel Laurete Gabriel García Márquez won a lawsuit in which a Colombian man claimed that a character in Márquez’s 1984 book Chronicle of a Death Foretold was based on him, according to The Guardian.

• Random: President Obama purchased Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, among other books, while holiday shopping, ABC News reported.

• Awards: Julia Alvarez, pictured at right, recently wrote about her acceptance of the Vermont Governor’sAward for Excellence in the Arts, which she received in November. The Cervantes Prize, considered the most prestigious Spanish language literary award, was given to Chilean poet Nicanor Parra, 97.

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