Customer Reviews

Literary El Paso (Literary Cities)

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With Literary El Paso, Marcia Hatfield Daudistel has truly showcased (and beautifully at that) the heart of the literary tradition from and about the most famous city on the Texas/Mexico Border. Split into three parts, a reader experiences El Paso from all angles: history, landscape, people and culture. The collection of writers is impressive (most have national and international reputations) and the variety of works; from fiction, historical non-fiction, poetry, and plays, certainly has something for every taste.

I highly recommend this book to anyone with a passion for great writing about the Southwest and El Paso; a place Hatfield Daudistel poetically refers to as "This Favored Place".

Literary El Paso is a collection of diverse writers, the pioneers of the Chicano literature movement and the current and emerging writers from the border. The book surprises and entertains the reader with powerful and surprising selections.

John Rechy, Rick DeMarinis, Denise Chavez, Ana Castillo, Pat Mora and Tom Lea were among the writers I already knew. However, in this 60+ writer compilation, I was introduced to many I did not know--yet. Ruben Salazar, Arturo Islas, Ricardo Sanchez and Jose Antonio Burciaga are among the writers who were part of the Chicano Movement. Elroy Bode's selections shows the raw beauty of the El Paso landscape and what has influenced people from far and wide to make this city their home. There are bilingual selections and an untranslated poem. In a city that shares its border with Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, some want to replace a river with a fence, and a fence with a wall. Whatever structure one wants to erect, the culture of El Paso is forever joined with Mexico, and yet El Paso's literary heritage is of its own exceptional people and their visions.