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The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader
by Gloria Anzaldua
Edited by AnaLouise Keating
Published by: Duke University Press Books
Series: Latin America Otherwise
376 pages, 156.00 x 235.00 mm, 10 illustrations
This reader—which provides a representative sample of the poetry, prose, fiction, and experimental autobiographical writing that Anzaldúa produced during her thirty-year career—demonstrates the breadth and philosophical depth of her work. While the reader contains much of Anzaldúa’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 Anzaldúa’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 Anzaldúa’s key terms and concepts, a timeline of her life, primary and secondary bibliographies, and a detailed index.
Introduction: Reading Gloria Anzaldúa, Reading Ourselves . . . Complex Intimacies, Intricate Connections 1
Part One. "Early" Writings
TIHUEQUE 19
To Delia, Who Failed on Principles 20
Reincarnation 21
The Occupant 22
I Want To Be Shocked Shitless 23
The New Speakers 24
Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers 26
The coming of el mundo surdo 36
La Prieta 38
El paisano is a bird of good omen 51
Dream of the Double-Faced Woman 70
Foreword to the Second Edition (of This Bridge Called My Back) 72
Sexuality, Spirituality, and the Body: An Interview with Linda Smuckler 74
Part Two. "Middle" Writings
Enemy of the State 97
Del Otro Lado 99
Encountering the Medusa 101
Creativity and Switching in Modes of Consciousness 103
En Rapport, In Opposition: Cobrando cuentas a las nuestras 111
The Presence 119
Metaphors in the Tradition of the Shaman 121
Haciendo caras, una entrada 124
Bridge, Drawbridge, Sandbar, or Island: Lesbians-of-Color Hacienda Alianzas 140
Ghost Trap/Trampa de espanto 157
To(o) Queer the Writer—Loca, escritora y chicana 163
Border Arte: Nepantla, El Lugar de la Frontera 176
On the Process of Writing Borderlands / La Frontera 187
La vulva is una herida abierta / The vulva is an open wound 198
The New Mestiza Nation: A Multicultural Movement 203
Part Three. Gallery of Images 217
Part Four. "Later" Writings
Foreword to Cassell's Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol, and Spirit 229
How to 232
Memoir—My Calling; or, Notes for "How Prieta Came to Write" 235
When I write I hover 238
Transforming American Studies: 2001 Bode-Pearson Prize Acceptance Speech 239
Yemayá 242
(Un)natural bridges, (Un)safe spaces 243
Healing wounds 249
Reading LP 250
A Short Q&A between LP and Her Author (GEA) 274
Like a spider in her web 276
Bearing Witness: Their Eyes Anticipate the Healing 277
The Postmodern Llorona 280
Speaking across the Divide 282
Llorona Coyolxauhqui 295
Disability & Identity: An E-mail Exchange & a Few Additional Thoughts 298
Let us be the healing of the wound: The Coyolxauhqui imperative—la sombra y el sueño 303
Appendix 1: Glossary 319
Appendix 2: Timeline: Some Highlights from Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa's Life 325
Bibliography 337
Index 351
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.
“The Reader does a good job of offering a wide range of Anzaldúa’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. Anzaldúa 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 Anzaldúa proud.” - Liliana Valenzuela, Texas Observer
“Compiled and edited by AnaLouise Keating, Anzaldúa’s long-time co-editor on decolonizing book projects such as this bridge we call home, The Anzaldúa Reader provides an in-depth view of the wide scope of Anzaldúa’s
interests and the developing nature of key concepts throughout her writing career. And it is this developing life project of Anzaldúa, 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 Anzaldúa Reader is the first and most comprehensive collection of Anzaldúa’s works. Keating has woven them carefully and artfully together into a tapestry sparkling with Anzaldúa’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 Anzaldúa’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, Anzaldúa’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. Cantú, University of Texas at San Antonio, founder of the Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldúa
“Gloria Anzaldúa 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 Anzaldúa 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 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. . . . . 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.”~Publishers Weekly
“The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader is the first and most comprehensive collection of Anzaldúa’s works. Keating has woven them carefully and artfully together into a tapestry sparkling with Anzaldúa’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, Anzaldúa’s long-time co-editor on decolonizing book projects such as this bridge we call home, The Anzaldúa Reader provides an in-depth view of the wide scope of Anzaldúa’s interests and the developing nature of key concepts throughout her writing career. And it is this developing life project of Anzaldúa, 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 Anzaldúa’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. Anzaldúa 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 Anzaldúa 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