Born in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas, independent scholar and creative writer Gloria Anzaldua was an internationally acclaimed cultural theorist. As the author of Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza, Anzaldua played a major role in shaping contemporary Chicano/a and lesbian/queer theories and identities. As an editor of three anthologies, including the groundbreaking This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, she played an equally vital role in developing an inclusionary, multicultural feminist movement. A versatile author, Anzaldua published poetry, theoretical essays, short stories, autobiographical narratives, interviews, and children's books. Her work, which has been included in more than 100 anthologies to date, has helped to transform academic fields including American, Chicano/a, composition, ethnic, literary, and women's studies.

This reader-which provides a representative sample of the poetry, prose, fiction, and experimental autobiographical writing that Anzaldua produced during her thirty-year career-demonstrates the breadth and philosophical depth of her work. While the reader contains much of Anzaldua's published writing (including several pieces now out of print), more than half the material has never before been published. This newly available work offers fresh insights into crucial aspects of Anzaldua's life and career, including her upbringing, education, teaching experiences, writing practice and aesthetics, lifelong health struggles, and interest in visual art, as well as her theories of disability, multiculturalism, pedagogy, and spiritual activism. The pieces are arranged chronologically; each one is preceded by a brief introduction. The collection includes a glossary of Anzaldua's key terms and concepts, a timeline of her life, primary and secondary bibliographies, and a detailed index.

A collection of published and unpublished writings of the groundbreaking lesbian feminist Chicana writer, poet, activist and cultural theorist

About the Author

Gloria Anzaldua (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 Anzaldua, and Audre Lorde; editor of Anzaldua's Interviews/Entrevistas and EntreMundos/AmongWorlds: New Perspectives on Gloria Anzaldua; and co-editor, with Anzaldua, 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 Anzaldua, and Audre Lorde; editor of Anzaldua's Interviews/Entrevistas and EntreMundos/AmongWorlds: New Perspectives on Gloria Anzaldua; and co-editor, with Anzaldua, of this bridge we call home: radical visions for transformation.

Reviews
"The Reader does a good job of offering a wide range of Anzaldua's writings, from her most famous and well-loved essays that appeared in the seminal Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza to never-before-published poems, experimental fiction, interviews, e-mail communications, and unfinished pieces. Anzaldua was a notorious perfectionist, sometimes revising essays and stories until an editor had to yank them from her hands. Still, this selection would've made Anzaldua proud." - Liliana Valenzuela, Texas Observer
"Compiled and edited by AnaLouise Keating, Anzaldua's long-time co-editor on decolonizing book projects such as this bridge we call home, The Anzaldua Reader provides an in-depth view of the wide scope of Anzaldua's
interests and the developing nature of key concepts throughout her writing career. And it is this developing life project of Anzaldua, the queer mestiza writer-poet-healer-activist, that provides the narrative structure for the Reader." - George Hartley, Southwestern American Literature
"This stunning anthology offers the best of Anzaldua, a versatile author, self-described as a queer mestiza Chicana feminist poet-philosopher. Her prolific poetry, theory, 'autohistoria,' short stories, and drawings are compiled in this thought-provoking volume." - WATERwheel
"The Gloria Anzaldua Reader is the first and most comprehensive collection of Anzaldua's works. Keating has woven them carefully and artfully together into a tapestry sparkling with Anzaldua's insights, such as her theories of new tribalism, left-handed world, la mestiza consciousness, and spiritual activism." - Xiumei Pu, Feminist Formations
"AnaLouise Keating's compilation of Gloria Anzaldua's 'early,' 'middle,' and 'later' writings provides a service to scholars; additionally, it is a joy to read Gloria's voice seeped in 'shaman aesthetics' that impel and move us to radical action. Undoubtedly, Anzaldua's impact on various levels-including academic fields such as border studies, women's studies, and American studies-is long-lasting and profound."- Norma E. Cantu, University of Texas at San Antonio, founder of the Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldua
"Gloria Anzaldua was a courageous participant in late-twentieth-century decolonial movements. Throughout this reader she insists that academic knowledge must take into account the spirit-body-emotions-mind matrix. Such an accounting would transform academic knowledge, she believed, and make way for emancipatory modes of knowing and for brave, new subjects of history. The Gloria Anzaldua Reader samples the bold lifework of a woman whose aims were to relieve suffering and to envision a decolonizing social affinity capable of uniting humanity in love."-Chela Sandoval, author of Methodology of the Oppressed
"Keating collects poems, essays, prose and commentaries by Anzaldua, revealing the public figure the pathbreaking queer Chicana writer as well as a sensual and deeply spiritual iconoclast. Anzaldua's voice emerges defiant, mercenary, passionate and unapologetic. . . . . The book is punctuated by Anzaldua'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." * Publishers Weekly *
"The Gloria Anzaldua Reader is the first and most comprehensive collection of Anzaldua's works. Keating has woven them carefully and artfully together into a tapestry sparkling with Anzaldua's insights, such as her theories of new tribalism, left-handed world, la mestiza consciousness, and spiritual activism." -- Xiumei Pu * Feminist Formations *
"Compiled and edited by AnaLouise Keating, Anzaldua's long-time co-editor on decolonizing book projects such as this bridge we call home, The Anzaldua Reader provides an in-depth view of the wide scope of Anzaldua's interests and the developing nature of key concepts throughout her writing career. And it is this developing life project of Anzaldua, the queer mestiza writer-poet-healer-activist, that provides the narrative structure for the Reader." -- George Hartley * Southwestern American Literature *
"The Reader does a good job of offering a wide range of Anzaldua's writings, from her most famous and well-loved essays that appeared in the seminal Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza to never-before-published poems, experimental fiction, interviews, e-mail communications, and unfinished pieces. Anzaldua was a notorious perfectionist, sometimes revising essays and stories until an editor had to yank them from her hands. Still, this selection would've made Anzaldua proud." -- Liliana Valenzuela * Texas Observer *
"This stunning anthology offers the best of Anzaldua, a versatile author, self-described as a queer mestiza Chicana feminist poet-philosopher. Her prolific poetry, theory, 'autohistoria,' short stories, and drawings are compiled in this thought-provoking volume." * WATER *



Book Information
ISBN 9780822345640
Author Gloria Anzaldua
Format Paperback
Page Count 376
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 522g