Curandera by Carmen Tafolla


Curandera
Title : Curandera
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 1609402375
ISBN-10 : 9781609402372
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 80
Publication : First published January 1, 1993

Featuring historic photos of the Chicano Movement in San Antonio and a new introduction, this is the 30th-anniversary edition of Carmen Tafolla’s first solo poetry collection. Having filled a cultural and linguistic void in 1983, when it was first published, this compilation showcases the poet's creation of a literary language from the natural Spanish and English code-switching of the barrios of San Antonio. Banned in Arizona along with many other multicultural books, this work celebrates bilingual and bicultural diversity and the power of individual imagination while simultaneously examining social inequities. Many poems from this book have been widely anthologized throughout the past three decades.

Curandera Reviews

  • David

    A very important volume was reissued this year: Curandera by Carmen Tafolla, one of the madrinas of Chicano/a poetry and newly appointed Poet Laureate of San Antonio. Originally intended to celebrate the volume’s 40th anniversary, this edition—which includes historical photographs of the Chicano literary movement in San Antonio, a new afterword, and a new foreword by Dr. Norma E. Cantú—was issued early so the emerging librotraficante effort could ship copies to Arizona, where Curandera, along with many other works of Mexican-American literature, has been effectively banned. This vital ur-text explores not only the variegated topology of Hispanic experience (“and when I dream dreams…,” “cop car’s bulleted brains,” “ancient house”), but also its unique voices and social registers (“los corts,” “¡ajay!”). Many pieces serve as discussions of the creative process and literature (“caminitos,” “quality literature”), underscoring reality: although they have now been “critiqued in the PMLA,” Chicano/a authors are still attacked in Arizona and elsewhere.

  • Karen

    This book was banned by Arizona schools.

  • Connor Leavitt

    Subaltern, meet speech. The fact that Arizona schools banned the book speaks all the more of its necessity.