Rudolfo Anaya

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Rudolfo Anaya
Born Rudolfo Anaya
October 30, 1937 (1937-10-30) (age 74)
Pastura, New Mexico
Occupation novelist, poet
Nationality USA
Notable work(s) Bless Me, Ultima
Alburquerque
Notable award(s) American Book Award; Quinto Sol; National Medal of Arts

Rudolfo Anaya (born October 30, 1937) is an Mexican-American author. Best known for his 1972 novel Bless Me, Ultima, Anaya is considered one of the founders of the canon of contemporary Chicano literature.[1]

Contents

[edit] Biography

Rudolfo Alfonso Anaya was born in the rural village of Pastura, New Mexico, to Martin and Rafaelita Anaya.[2] His father came from a family of cattle workers and sheepherders, and his mother’s family were farmers.[3] Anaya was the fifth of their seven children together; he also had three half-siblings from his parents’ previous marriages.[4] When Anaya was a small child, his family moved to Santa Rosa, New Mexico.[5] In 1952, they relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they lived in the Barelas neighborhood.[3] Spanish was spoken at home, and Anaya did not learn English until he started school.[6]

When he was a teenager, Anaya suffered a diving accident while swimming with friends in an irrigation ditch and broke two vertebrae in his neck.[7] At first rendered paralyzed by the accident, he eventually made a substantial recovery, learning to walk again though never becoming entirely free of pain.[8] In 1956, Anaya graduated from an Albuquerque high school.[5] He then attended business school for two years, but he found it unfulfilling.[9] He transferred to the University of New Mexico, where he graduated in 1963 with a degree in English.[5] l Anaya worked as a public school teacher in Albuquerque from 1963 to 1970.[10] In 1966, he married Patricia Lawless, who would serve as his editor over the years.[11] She encouraged him to pursue his literary endeavors, and over a period of seven years, he completed his first novel, Bless Me, Ultima.[9] Dozens of publishing houses rejected the novel.[12] Finally, in 1972, a group of editors at El Grito, a Chicano quarterly, accepted the book.[13] Bless Me, Ultima went on to win the prestigious Premio Quinto Sol award and is now considered a classic Chicano work.[5] It was chosen as one of the books of The Big Read, a community-reading program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts.[14] It is also one of the literary works in 2009 of the United States Academic Decathlon.[15] Anaya followed Bless Me, Ultima with Heart of Aztlan (1978) and Tortuga (1979), forming a trilogy.

In 1974, Anaya accepted a position as an associate professor at the University of New Mexico.[5] He became a full professor in the Department of English Language and Literature in 1988.[16] Since retiring from the University in 1993 as a Professor Emeritus, Anaya has continued to write, completing—among other works—the novel Alburquerque and the Sonny Baca quartet of detective novels. He has recently published a number of books for children and young adults.

[edit] List of Books

[edit] Fiction

[edit] Sonny Baca series

[edit] Books for children

  • The Farolitos of Christmas: A New Mexico Christmas Story (1987), ISBN 0-937206-05-9
  • Maya's Children: The Story of La Llorana (1996), illustrated by Maria Baca, ISBN 0-7868-0152-2
  • Farolitos for Abuelo (1998), illustrated by Edward Gonzalez, ISBN 0-7868-0237-5
  • My Land Sings: Stories from the Rio Grande (1999), illustrated by Amy Córdova, ISBN 0-688-15078-0
  • Elegy on the Death of César Chávez (2000), illustrated by Gaspar Enriquez, ISBN 0-938317-51-2
  • Roadrunner's Dance (2000), illustrated by David Diaz, ISBN 0-7868-0254-5
  • The Santero's Miracle: A Bilingual Story (2004), illustrated by Amy Córdova, Spanish translation by Enrique Lamadrid, ISBN 0-8263-2847-4
  • The Curse of the ChupaCabra (2006), ISBN 0826341144
  • The First Tortilla (2007), illustrated by Amy Córdova, Spanish translation by Enrique Lamadrid, ISBN 0826342140
  • ChupaCabra and the Roswell UFO (2008), ISBN 0826344690

[edit] Non-fiction and Anthologies

  • Voices from the Rio Grande: Selections from the First Rio Grande Writers Conference (1976)
  • Cuentos: Tales from the Hispanic Southwest (1980), with Jose Griego y Maestas, ISBN 0890131112
  • A Ceremony of Brotherhood, 1680-1980 (1981), edited with Simon J. Ortiz
  • Cuentos Chicanos: A Short Story Anthology (rev. ed. 1984), edited with Antonio Márquez, ISBN 0-8263-0772-8
  • A Chicano in China (1986), ISBN 0-8263-0888-0
  • Voces: An Anthology of Nuevo Mexicano Writers (1987, 1988), editor, ISBN 0-8263-1040-0
  • Aztlán: Essays on the Chicano Homeland (1989), edited with Francisco A. Lamelí, ISBN 0-929820-01-0
  • Tierra: Contemporary Short Fiction of New Mexico (1989), editor, ISBN 0-938317-09-1
  • Flow of the River (2nd ed. 1992), ISBN 0-944725-00-7
  • Descansos: An Interrupted Journey (1995), with Denise Chávez and Juan Estevan Arellano, ISBN 0-929820-06-1
  • Muy Macho: Latino Men Confront Their Manhood, edited and introduction by Ray Gonzales, ISBN 0385478615
  • Chicano/a Studies: Writing into the Future (1998), edited with Robert Con Davis-Undiano

[edit] Poetry

[edit] Published or Performed Plays

  • The Season of La Llorona
  • Ay, Compadre! (1994)
  • The Farolitos of Christmas (1987)
  • Matachines (1992)
  • Billy the Kid (1995)
  • Who Killed Don Jose? (1995)

[edit] Awards and honors

[3]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Cesar A. Gonzales-T., The Ritual and Myth of Experience in the Works of Rudolfo A. Anaya, published in A Sense of Place: Rudolfo A. Anaya: An Annotated Bio-Bibliography (2000).
  2. ^ Gonzales-T, Morgan, Phyllis S., A Sense of Place: Rudolfo A. Anaya: An Annotated Bio-Bibliography (2000).
  3. ^ a b c Author Bio at Gale
  4. ^ Ibid.
  5. ^ a b c d e A Sense of Place, supra.
  6. ^ Rudolfo Anaya, Autobiography: As written in 1985, TOS Publications.
  7. ^ Ibid.
  8. ^ Ibid.
  9. ^ a b Autobiography, supra.
  10. ^ Ibid.
  11. ^ Ibid.
  12. ^ Ibid.
  13. ^ Ibid.
  14. ^ NEA The Big Read.
  15. ^ [1] United States Academic Decathlon.
  16. ^ Ibid.

[edit] External links

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