A Critical Collection on Alejandro Morales: Forging an Alternative Chicano Fiction

Description

Alejandro Morales is a pioneer of Chicana and Chicano literature and the author of groundbreaking works including The Brick People, The Rag Doll Plagues, and River of Angels. His work, often experimental, was one of the first to depict harsh urban realities in the barrios--a break from much of the Chicana and Chicano fiction that had been published previously. Morales' relentless work has grown over the decades into a veritable menagerie of cultural testimonies, fantastic counterhistories, magical realism, challenging metanarratives, and flesh-and-blood aesthetic innovation. The fourteen essays included in this compendium examine Morales' novels and short stories. The editors also include a critical introduction; an interview between Morales, the editors, and fellow author Daniel Olivas; and a new comprehensive bibliography of Morales' writings and works about him--books, articles, book reviews, online resources, and dissertations. A Critical Collection on Alejandro Morales: Forging an Alternative Chicano Fiction is a must-read for understanding and appreciating Morales' work in particular and Chicana and Chicano literature in general. Cover Half title Title Copyright Table of Contents Introduction: Alejandro Morales, An Errant Maverick Faces the Literary Canon and History by Marc García-Martínez and Francisco A. Lomelí Chapter 1. Submersion, Suffocation, and Entombment of the Mexican and Immigrant Body in River of Angels—Probing Figuration of Violence and Isolation by Marc García-Martínez Chapter 2. The Analogous Correspondence of an Extreme Poetics between Stanley Kubrik’s A Clockwise Orange and Alejandro Morales’ Barrio on the Edge by Francisco A. Lomelí Chapter 3. Alejandro Morales’ The Captain of All These Men of Death and Philip Roth’s Nemesis: Parallels and Contrasts by Stephen Miller Chapter 4. Tropes of Ecothinking and the Spatial Imaginary in Alejandro Morales’ River of Angels by Sophia Emmanouilidou Chapter 5. History, Spatial Justice, and the Esperpento in Alejandro Morales’ Pequeña nación by Jesús Rosales Chapter 6. Heterotopia and the Emergence of the Modern Ilusa in Waiting to Happen by Margarita López López Chapter 7. City History and Space PoliticsL Los Angeles in Morales’ River of Angels by Baojie Li Chapter 8. Pequeña nación: Big (Feminist) Revolution by Amaia Ibarraran-Bigalondo Chapter 9. Bodies in Motion in The Place of the White Heron, Volume Two of the Heterotopian Trilogy: A Glance through Panopticon by Adam Spires Chapter 10. Race, Space, and Magial Realism in The Brick People and River of Angels by Adina Ciugureanu Chapter 11. Mestizaje, Cultural Identity, and Environmental Degradation in Alejandro Morales’ The Rag Doll Plagues by Manuel M. Martín-Rodríguez Chapter 12. Translation as Rewriting and Resituating: The Two English Versions of Cara viejas y vino nuevo by Alejandro Morales by Elena Errico Chapter 13. History and Fiction in Alejandro Morales’ Narratives by Luis Leal Chapter 14. Epidemics, Epistemophilia, and Racism: Ecological Literary Criticism and The Rag Doll Plagues by María Herrera-Sobek Chapter 15. A Dialogue with the Writer Alejandro Morales by Francisco A. Lomelí, Marc García-Martínez, and Daniel Olivas Bibliography List of Contributors Index