Writing on the Edge: A Borderlands Reader - Softcover

Tom Miller

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0816522413 ISBN 13: 9780816522415

Publisher: University of Arizona Press, 2003

Synopsis

Twenty miles wide and two thousand long, the U.S.-Mexico borderland is a country unto itself that has been celebrated in the works of many writers—and not just those who call it home. Here artists as disparate as Carlos Fuentes, Maya Angelou, and Allen Ginsberg have found literary inspiration, presenting the region through varied viewpoints that give border writing its unusual scope and texture.

This wide-ranging anthology—gathering short stories and essays, song lyrics and poems—offers readers a new appreciation of the border and its literature. Residents of the region may be startled to learn how many passers-by have been struck by this unruly slice of North America, while those living in other parts of the country may be surprised to find it more than a dateline for reports of smuggling and illegal immigration.

Collected here are both celebrated and underappreciated gems of American and Mexican literature depicting a region that for some writers represents an exotic land, for others home. Writing on the Edge juxtaposes passages by New Jersey poet William Carlos Williams and native songwriter Flaco Jiménez, British novelist Graham Greene and American poet Demetria Martínez, to show us the border from both sides and from a distance. In all of the selections, La Frontera looms larger than life—an energizing force that frames the lives of the characters living within its boundaries. Included in the book is a literary map of the border highlighting the sites with which each author is identified.

As editor Tom Miller observes, the very notion of literature in a region considered an "irrelevant nuisance" allows for more free-ranging creative output." Writing on the Edge sparkles with such creativity and invites readers to enjoy the best of two worlds—and of the world they share.

Print a literary map of the borderlands here!

About this title

About the Author

Tom Miller has written about the American Southwest and Latin America for more than thirty years. His eight previous books include On the Border, The Panama Hat Trail, and Jack Ruby's Kitchen Sink: Offbeat Travels through America's Southwest.

From the Back Cover

Contributors: / Oscar Zeta Acosta / Ricardo Aguilar-Melantzón / Miguel de Anda Jacobsen / Maya Angelou / Gloria Anzaldúa / Mariano Azuela / Charles Bowden / Aristeo Brito / José Antonio Burciaga / Norma Elia Cantú / Lorna Dee Cervantes / Sandra Cisneros / Ry Cooder, John Hiatt, and James Dickinson / Stephen Crane / Cora Hayward Crawford / Brianda Domecq / Lawrence Ferlinghetti / Carlos Fuentes / Eduardo Galeano / Alicia Gaspar de Alba / Allen Ginsberg / Guillermo Gómez-Peña / Genaro González / Ray Gonzalez / Graham Greene / Woody Guthrie / Martín Luis Guzmán / Los Hermanos Bañuelos / María Herrera-Sobek / Rolando Hinojosa / Jorge Ibargüengoitia / Arturo Islas / Bárbara Jacobs / Flaco Jiménez / Robert L. Jones / Jack Kerouac / Graciela Limón / Gloria López-Stafford / Gilberto Maldonado Herrera / Demetria Martínez / Oscar J. Martínez / Rubén Martínez / Vladimir Mayakovsky / Miguel Méndez / Tom Miller / Oscar Monroy Rivera / Pat Mora / Myriam Moscona / Gary Nabhan / Eugene Nelson / Victor Ochoa / Phil Ochs / Américo Paredes / Los Pingüinos del Norte / Elena Poniatowska / Janet Arelis Quezada / George Rabasa / John Reed / Alberto Alvaro Ríos / Marty Robbins / Luis J. Rodríguez / Richard Rodriguez / John Ross / Benjamin Alire Sáenz / Ricardo Sánchez / Trinidad V. Sánchez / Edward R. F. Sheehan / Gilbert Shelton and Dave Sheridan / Sam Shepard / Earl Shorris / Luis Spota / Hart Stilwell / Paco Ignacio Taibo II / Gabriel Trujillo Muñoz / Luis Alberto Urrea / José Vasconcelos / Victor Villaseñor / Joseph Wambaugh / Alan Weisman / William Carlos Williams / Agustín Yáñez

This wide-ranging anthology--gathering short stories and essays, song lyrics and poems--offers readers a new appreciation of the border and its literature. Residents of the region may be startled to learn how many passers-by have been struck by this unruly slice of North America, while those living in other parts of the country may be surprised to find it more than a dateline for reports of smuggling and illegal immigration.

Collected here are both celebrated and underappreciated gems of American and Mexican literature depicting a region that for some writers represents an exotic land, for others home. "Writing on the Edge" juxtaposes passages by New Jersey poet William Carlos Williams and native songwriter Flaco JimA(c)nez, British novelist Graham Greene and American poet Demetria MartA-nez, to show us the border from both sides and from a distance. In all of the selections, La Frontera looms larger than life--an energizing force that frames the lives of the characters living within its boundaries. Included in the book is a literary map of the border highlighting the sites with which each author is identified.

As editor Tom Miller observes, the very notion of literature in a region considered an "irrelevant nuisance" allows for more free-ranging creative output." "Writing on the Edge"sparkles with such creativity and invites readers to enjoy the best of two worlds--and of the world they share.
Table of Contents
Print a literary map of the borderlands here!

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0816522413
• ISBN 13: 9780816522415
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 360