Texas Book Festival Book Club

April 2021

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Nepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in between Worlds

Nepantla Familias brings together Mexican American narratives that explore and negotiate the many permutations of living in between different worlds—how the authors or their characters create, or fail to create, a cohesive identity amid the contradictions in their lives. Nepantla—or living in the in-between space of the borderland—is the focus of this anthology. The essays, poems, and short stories explore the in-between moments in Mexican American life—the family dynamics of living between traditional and contemporary worlds, between Spanish and English, between cultures with traditional and shifting identities. In times of change, family values are either adapted or discarded in the quest for self-discovery, part of the process of selecting and composing elements of a changing identity.

Edited by award-winning writer and scholar Sergio Troncoso, this anthology includes works from familiar and acclaimed voices such as David Dorado Romo, Sandra Cisneros, Alex Espinoza, Reyna Grande, and Francisco Cantú, as well as from important new voices, such as Stephanie Li, David Dominguez, and ire’ne lara silva. These are writers who open and expose the in-between places: through or at borders; among the past, present, and future; from tradition to innovation; between languages; in gender; about the wounds of the past and the victories of the present; of life and death.

Nepantla Familias shows the quintessential American experience that revives important foundational values through immigrants and the children of immigrants. Here readers will find a glimpse of contemporary Mexican American experience; here, also, readers will experience complexities of the geographic, linguistic, and cultural borders common to us all.Nepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in between WorldsNepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in between WorldsNepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in between WorldsNepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in between WorldsNepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in between WorldsNepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in between WorldsNepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in between WorldsNepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in between Worlds

About the Contributors

Sergio Troncoso is most recently the author of A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son, a collection of linked short stories on immigration which Luis Alberto Urrea called “a world-class collection.” Troncoso also edited the 2021 anthology Nepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in between Worlds, which received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews. A Fulbright scholar, Troncoso is currently president of the Texas Institute of Letters.
Francisco Cantú is the author of The Line Becomes a River. A former Fulbright fellow and the recipient of an Art for Justice fellowship, his writing on the borderlands appears in the New Yorker, Best American Essays and VQR. A lifelong resident of the Southwest, he now lives in Tucson.
Diana López is the author of several middle grade books including Confetti Girl and Lucky Luna. Her debut picture book biography about Selena Quintanilla will be released in the summer. She recently retired as an educator but is still "teaching" by serving as a mentor for Latinx in Publishing and AWP's Writer to Writer program.
José Antonio Rodríguez’s most recent books are the poetry collection This American Autopsy and the memoir House Built on Ashes, finalist for the PEN American Los Angeles award. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times MagazinePoetryThe NationBorderSensesPaterson Literary Review, and elsewhere. He holds a PhD in English from Binghamton University and teaches creative writing at the University of Texas–Rio Grande Valley.