Luis Alberto Urrea

In a new 10th anniversary edition: "The single most compelling, lucid, and lyrical contemporary account of the absurdity of U.S. border policy" (The Atlantic). In May 2001, a group of men attempted to cross the Mexican border into the desert of southern Arizona, through the deadliest region of the continent, the "Devil's Highway." Three years later, Luis Alberto Urrea wrote about what happened to them. The result was a national bestseller, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a "book of the year" in multiple newspapers, and a work proclaimed as a modern American classic.

A True Story

The Devil's Highway

'Epic . . . Rambunctious . . . Highly entertaining' New York Times 'All we do, mija, is love. Love is the answer. Nothing stops it. Not borders. Not death.' In his final days, beloved and ailing patriarch Miguel Angel de La Cruz, affectionately called Big Angel, has summoned his entire clan for one last legendary birthday party. But as the party approaches, his mother, nearly one hundred, dies, transforming the weekend into a farewell doubleheader. Among the guests is Big Angel's half brother, known as Little Angel, who must reckon with the truth that although he shares a father with his siblings, he has not, as a half gringo, shared a life. Across two bittersweet days in their San Diego neighbourhood, the revellers mingle among the palm trees and cacti, celebrating the lives of Big Angel and his mother, and recounting the many inspiring tales that have passed into family lore, the acts both ordinary and heroic that brought these citizens to a fraught and sublime country and allowed them to flourish in the land they have come to call home. Teeming with brilliance and humor, authentic at every turn, The House of Broken Angels is Luis Alberto Urrea at his best, and cements his reputation as a storyteller of the first rank.

The House of Broken Angels

In the tradition of The Nightingale and Transcription, an exhilarating World War II epic that chronicles an extraordinary young woman's heroic frontline service in the Red Cross "Urrea's touch is sure, his exuberance carries you through . . . He is a generous writer, not just in his approach to his craft but in the broader sense of what he feels necessary to capture about life itself." --Financial Times In 1943, Irene Woodward abandons an abusive fiancé in New York to enlist with the Red Cross and head to Europe. She makes fast friends in training with Dorothy Dunford, a towering Midwesterner with a ferocious wit. Together they are part of an elite group of women, nicknamed Donut Dollies, who command military buses called Clubmobiles at the front line, providing camaraderie and a taste of home that may be the only solace before troops head into battle. After D-Day, these two intrepid friends join the Allied soldiers streaming into France. Their time in Europe will see them embroiled in danger, from the Battle of the Bulge to the liberation of Buchenwald. Through her friendship with Dorothy, and a love affair with a gallant American fighter pilot named Hans, Irene learns to trust again. Her most fervent hope, which becomes more precarious by the day, is for all three of them to survive the war intact. Taking as inspiration his mother's own Red Cross service, Luis Alberto Urrea has delivered an overlooked story of women's heroism in World War II. With its affecting and uplifting portrait of friendship and valor in harrowing circumstances, Good Night, Irene powerfully demonstrates yet again that Urrea's "gifts as a storyteller are prodigious" (NPR).

Good Night, Irene

A new short story collection from Luis Alberto Urrea, bestselling author of The Hummingbird's Daughter and The Devil's Highway. From one of America's preeminent literary voices comes a new story collection that proves once again why the writing of Luis Alberto Urrea has been called "wickedly good" (Kansas City Star), "cinematic and charged" (Cleveland Plain Dealer), and "studded with delights" (Chicago Tribune). Examining the borders between one nation and another, between one person and another, Urrea reveals his mastery of the short form. This collection includes the Edgar-award winning "Amapola" and his now-classic "Bid Farewell to Her Many Horses," which had the honor of being chosen for NPR's "Selected Shorts" not once but twice. Suffused with wanderlust, compassion, and no small amount of rock and roll, THE WATER MUSEUM is a collection that confirms Luis Alberto Urrea as an American master.

Stories

The Water Museum

Good Night Irene

Nineteen-year-old Nayeli works at a taco shop in her Mexican village and dreams about her father, who journeyed to the US when she was young. Recently, it has dawned on her that he isn't the only man who has left town. In fact, there are almost no men in the village--they've all gone north. While watching The Magnificent Seven, Nayeli decides to go north herself and recruit seven men--her own "Siete Magníficos"--to repopulate her hometown and protect it from the bandidos who plan on taking it over. Filled with unforgettable characters and prose as radiant as the Sinaloan sun, Into the Beautiful North is the story of an irresistible young woman's quest to find herself on both sides of the fence.

A Novel

Into the Beautiful North

"From the author of Pulitzer-nominated The Devil's Highway and national bestseller The Hummingbird's Daughter comes an exquisitely composed collection of poetry on life at the border. Weaving English and Spanish languages as fluidly as he blends cultures of the southwest, Luis Urrea offers a tour of Tijuana, spanning from Skid Row, to the suburbs of East Los Angeles, to the stunning yet deadly Mojave Desert, to Mexico and the border fence itself. Mixing lyricism and colloquial voices, mysticism and the daily grind, Urrea explores duality and the concept of blurring borders in a melting pot society"--

poems

The Tijuana book of the dead

Kanadı Kırık Melekler Evi

Jose Galvez

Black-and-white photographs of Latino men in a variety of situations portray Mexican-American culture and heritage, while the accompanying poem pays tribute to their struggles and dreams.

Vatos

Gathers scenes of poverty, squalor, brutality, and humanity

Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border

Across the Wire

Christopher Cardinale

Tells a story of a graffiti artist, Mr. Mendoza, who goes about the Mexican village of Rosario creating masterpieces that reflect the social ills of the city. One day his paintbrush creates a miraculous event that no one in Rosario ever forgets.

Mr. Mendoza's Paintbrush

Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and an Anglo mother, Urrea moved to San Diego at age three. In this memoir of his childhood, Urrea describes his experiences growing up in the barrio and his search for cultural identity.

Notes from an American Life

Nobody's Son

Working in a Mexican taco shop while dreaming of the father who left their family to work in the United States, nineteen-year-old Nayeli struggles with a realization that most of the men in her village have left to pursue work in the north, a situation for which she endeavors to recruit seven men to repopulate her hometown and protect it from bandidos. Original.

Looks at those living in poverty in Tijuana, and the social and economic forces that make them desperate to cross the border

The Secret Life of the Mexican Border

By the Lake of Sleeping Children

Gregory McNamee

A Literary Celebration

A World of Turtles

Urrea

Born in Tijuana, Mexico, to a Mexican father and a white mother, the author recounts growing up in San Diego in the barrior, where he struggled to realize his ethnic identity, his sexual coming-of-age, and his share of the American Dream. UP.

Pamela Uschuk

Edited by Beth Alvarado, Octavio Quintanilla, Carmen Tafolla, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Edward Vidaurre, this anthology of poetry and prose features 90 plus Chicanx writers from all over the U.S., including Lorna Dee Cervantes, Ana Castillo, Sandra Cisneros, Rosemary Catacalos, Alberto Rios, Gary Soto, Alma Garcia, Leticia Del Toro, Jenn Givhan, Octavio Solis, Odilia Galvan Rodriguez, Rachel Gutierrez, and many more. It is a feast of contemporary Chicanx literature. Black Earth Institute and Cutthroat, a Journal of the Arts, coordinated by Pamela Uschuk, collaborated on publishing this historic collection of Chicanx writers.

Luis Alberto Urrea

About

Books

Join the club