Conversations with Rudolfo Anaya

A collection of interviews with Rudolfo Anaya, conducted over the course of over 20 years, from 1976-1998. The interviewers are literary critics, scholars, and fellow writers, thus the conversations offer opportunities for Anaya to discuss his childhood, upbringing, and cultural heritage, as well as his creative processes, political views, and social involvement. Many of the interviews focus, naturally, on Bless Me, Ultima, Anaya’s most well-known 1972 novel, but this is often only a launching point from which to discuss other novels, short stories, essays, plays, and poetry. Anaya’s warm, intelligent, genuine personality shines as he considers his career from different angles that bring together the personal, the literary, and the political. The role literature played in the emergence of the Chicano movement of the early 1970s, for example, is illuminated as an important key to understanding Anaya’s contribution not only to Southwest area studies, but to American culture as a whole. Similarly, autobiographical anecdotes emphasize the intimate connections between the author’s personal experiences, the writing process, and the eventual published work. The collection is a rich resource of face-to-face encounters with Anaya, presenting a range of topics that are essential to any reader interested in the author’s life, work, career, and relevance.