Calligraphy of the Witch: A Novel(St. Martin's Press, 2007)

A spirited indentured servant gets tangled up in the 17th-century Massachusetts Bay Colony witch hunts in this ambitious historical drama. Halfway through her 15-year indenture at a Mexico City convent, Concepción Benavidez escapes only to be captured by pirates and taken to Boston, where she's sold into slavery. Nathaniel Greenwood, a local merchant, is impressed that the papist slave can write and purchases her to help his disabled father-in-law manage his chicken farm. Renamed Thankful Seagraves, Concepción, who was repeatedly raped by the pirate captain, soon discovers that she's pregnant. Greenwood's barren wife, Rebecca, covets Concepción's newborn daughter, Hanna, and sets out to take her away. As their struggle over the girl unfolds, witch hysteria grips the colony, and Concepción is drawn into the fray when Hanna fingers her for a witch. De Alba's recreation is undercut by thin characterizations—the men are mostly cruel and the women victims, the notable exception being Concepción, who clings to her dignity under the most trying conditions. But De Alba ( Sor Juana's Second Dream ) has a firm grasp of her historical material and portrays the pirate life as convincingly as the witch trials. Readers interested in the period will want to give this a look. (Oct.)

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This title in English is out of print. If you would like a signed first edition, use the BUY BOOKS link above right.

 

Die Hexen-Schrift (German translation of Calligraphy of the Witch, trans. Susanne Goga-Klinkenberg. Berlin: Weltbild, 2010)

 

 

 

 

Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders (Arte Publico Press, 2005)

Ivon Villa, a women's studies professor who needs to finish her dissertation in order to keep her job, travels to her hometown of El Paso to arrange for an adoption for herself and her female lover. Just across the border, however, the pregnant Juarez factory worker who agreed to give up her baby becomes the latest victim in a long string of unsolved murders of Mexican women in the area. Ivon vows to get past the secrecy, coverups, and conspiracy surrounding the terror-inflicting murders while dealing with her mother's disapproval, her cousin's alcoholism, and a renegade priest's activism. Offering a powerful depiction of social injustice and serial murder on the U.S.-Mexican border, this is an essential purchase for both mystery and Hispanic fiction collections. A native of the Juarez/El Paso border, Gaspar de Alba (Sor Juana's Second Dream) is an associate professor of Chicano studies and English at UCLA. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information. (from www. barnesandnoble.com)

Winner of the Lambda Literary Foundation Award for Best Lesbian Mystery of 2005 and a Latino Book Award for Best English-Language Mystery of 2005.

The Spanish edition, Sangre en el desierto: las muertas de Juárez, translated by Rosario Sanmiguel (Arte Publico Press, 2008) is also available.

Il deserto delle morti silenziose: gli feminicidi a Juárez (Italian translation of DesertBlood: The Juárez Murders. Rome: Nuova Frontiera, 2007)

 

A new Spanish edition of Desert Blood/Sangre en el desierto released in November 2011.

French edition of Desert Blood coming in 2012!

Alicia reads from Desert Blood for GuerrillaReads.

More about Desert Blood at http://desertblood.net.

 

 

Sor Juana's Second Dream (University of New Mexico Press, 1999)

 

In her first novel, poet and Chicano studies scholar Gaspar de Alba brings to life Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, a prolific, brilliant, and complex author and nun of 17th-century Mexico. Although Sor Juana left behind several volumes of published writings, the more personal details of her life remainsketchy. Gaspar de Alba has artfully combined excerpts from the writings with explicit, fictionalized journal entries to create a vibrant, if sometimes anachronistic, account of a complex life. Long adored in Mexico, Sor Juana has only recently become popular in the United States. She is often considered North America's first lesbian feminist writer, and Gaspar de Alba clearly shares this view. Eminently readable, this book is recommended for larger public libraries; readers desiring a more conservative biography might prefer Nobel laureate Octavio Paz's Sor Juana; or, The Traps of Faith (LJ 9/1/88).--Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, OR Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information. (from Library Journal and www.barnesandnoble.com)

Winner of the 2001 Latino Literary Hall of Fame Award for Best Historical Fiction

The hardback first edition is out of print. If you would like a signed first edition, use the BUY BOOKS link above right.

 

 

Sor Juana’s Zweiter Traum (German translation of Sor Juana’s Second Dream) trans. Andrea Krug. Berlin: Krug & Schadenberg, 2002)

El segundo sueño (Spanish translation of Sor Juana’s Second Dream, trans. Bettina Blanch Tyroller. Barcelona, Spain: Grijalbo mondadori, 2001)

Sor Juana Novel Adaptations
“The Nun and the Countess,” adapted for the stage by Odalys Nanin, produced by MACHA PLAY Theater Company, Los Angeles, CA, Oct. – Dec. 2003 ADAPTATION

“The Sor Juana Project,” composer and co-librettist, Carla Lucero, Co-produced by Queer OPERA Artists’ Coalition (QueLACo) and Queer Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA, ADAPTATION, June 2003 & June 2004 (AGA was co-librettist)