This powerful collection of poetry and short prose recollects the Chicana/o experience of the sixties through the nineties as it chronicles the involvement and personal experiences of one of America's most engaging writers. Night Train to Tuxtla brings together the lyric interests and preoccupations that have propelled Juan Felipe Herrera forward during the last quarter century, while representing a mature and distilled sample of the poetic technique he has developed.
The collection deals with a vast array of themes and subjects - the music of Carlos Santana, a train ride from Mexico City to Tuxtla Gutierrez, the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Mayan Indians in Chiapas - revealing a poetic persona who links a broad variety of motifs and elements. Herrera has created an innovative approach to recent cultural history, a stunning collage that brings many images into one intense, cohesive work of art.
Herrera observes that one of his key concerns as a writer has been "to unearth the stories about the Chicano and the Latin American experience. And yet it is not a pure archaeology since language re-creates itself, the speakers, and the events." Readers can be grateful that his is not an exact science; they will be moved by his words.
Genre: Literary Fiction
The collection deals with a vast array of themes and subjects - the music of Carlos Santana, a train ride from Mexico City to Tuxtla Gutierrez, the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Mayan Indians in Chiapas - revealing a poetic persona who links a broad variety of motifs and elements. Herrera has created an innovative approach to recent cultural history, a stunning collage that brings many images into one intense, cohesive work of art.
Herrera observes that one of his key concerns as a writer has been "to unearth the stories about the Chicano and the Latin American experience. And yet it is not a pure archaeology since language re-creates itself, the speakers, and the events." Readers can be grateful that his is not an exact science; they will be moved by his words.
Genre: Literary Fiction
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