In 1963 he graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in English. He took a teaching position in a small New Mexico town and continued to practice his writing every day. In 1966 he married Patricia Lawless, who supported her husband’s desire to write and served as his editor.
In the 1960s, Anaya taught junior high and high school during the day and worked on his writing in the evenings, struggling to find his literary voice. Although he conjured up images of his past, he found that he was writing in a style foreign to that past. The words and the characters would not mix. Then Anaya had something of a mystical experience that pushed him toward the development of his own unique Mexican American style. As he labored over his writing one night, he turned to see an elderly woman dressed in black standing in his room. This vision spurred the writer into action, and a story began to flow from his pen, inspiring his first novel, Bless Me, Ultima. The old woman in black became Ultima, a healer who helps the story’s main character find his way as he comes of age.
Bless Me, Ultima tells the story of Antonio Juan Márez y Luna, a six-year-old boy growing up in rural New Mexico during World War II. Antonio is befriended by Ultima, a kindly curandera, healer, who has come to stay with his family. Through Ultima, Antonio discovers the mysteries of the plains surrounding him and learns how to use plants for medicinal purposes. But when Ultima heals Antonio’s uncle after a family of witches place curses on him, Tenorio Trementina, the witches’ father, declares war against Ultima. Much of the drama of the novel grows from the conflict between Ultima and Trementina, which plays out as a clash between good and evil.
Another theme of the book is Antonio’s struggle to understand his place in the world. Like Anaya, the boy is pulled between his father’s wandering life of a vaquero and his mother’s harmonic, grounded existence with the earth itself. He also contemplates his future—as a priest, as his mother desires, or as a scholar, as Ultima predicts. And he questions the validity of his Catholic faith, which seems powerless against pain and suffering, while Ultima’s magic heals. His struggles are exemplified in his discovery of a golden carp in the river, which as told in local folklore is a god. To simply suppose the carp may share divinity with God becomes a question of meaning that feels to Antonio like a betrayal of his mother’s faith, yet it is a question he cannot help but ask.
Although Bless Me, Ultima would receive wide acclaim upon its publication, Anaya faced serious struggles in finding a publisher who would accept his manuscript, which incorporated both English and Spanish words. After sending inquiries out to numerous publishers, he received rejections from all of them, most often because his writing was too Latino in style and language. “It was extremely hard,” Anaya told Publishers Weekly. “I sent the book to dozens of trade publishers over a couple of years and found no interest at all. The mainstream publishers weren’t taking anything Chicano and we had nowhere to go. For us, living in a bilingual world, it was very normal to allow Spanish into a story written in English—it’s a process that reflects our spoken language—but [in approaching mainstream publishers] I was always called on it. Without the small academic, ethnic, and university presses, we’d never have gotten our work published.”
Finally, Anaya happened on an advertisement from Quinto Sol Publications, a small press in California, inviting authors to submit manuscripts. He sent in Bless Me, Ultima and Quinto Sol quickly agreed to publish it. Bless Me, Ultima became a reality in 1972, seven years after Anaya had first begun writing the novel. Critics responded enthusiastically to the book, noting that it provided a new, refreshing offering to Chicano literature, and it was awarded the Premio Quinto Sol for the best Chicano novel of 1972. The new author would soon find fame among Chicano readers and scholars.
With his newfound acclaim, Anaya secured a faculty position at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque, where he remained as teacher and adviser until he retired in 1993. He published his second novel, Heart of Aztlan, in 1976. The book tells the story of the Chavez family, forced to move from their farm to the barrios of Albuquerque. Heart of Aztlan is a political novel that focuses on the struggles of a displaced family. While the father attempts to fight the oppressive forces that surround him, his children succumb to the temptations of sex, drugs, and alcohol, and the family is torn apart. Tortuga, Anaya’s third novel, published in 1979, completed a loosely tied trilogy that focused on the Chicano experience over several generations. Tortuga is set in a sanitarium for terminally ill teenagers. The main character is a boy who lies in the hospital in a full-body cast, partially paralyzed and unable to move. He is nicknamed Tortuga, which means turtle in Spanish, because of his cast. In despair, he tries to kill himself, but through the wisdom of another boy who is terminally ill, Tortuga learns to accept and appreciate his life. The winner of the Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award, Tortuga was well received and was considered by some critics to be Anaya’s most complete and accomplished work.
Following the completion of Tortuga, Anaya branched out, experimenting with writing plays, short stories, poems, documentaries and travel journals, and children’s stories. His short stories were collected as The Silence of the Llano (1982). A Chicano in China (1986) was a nonfiction account of Anaya’s travels to China. The Legend of La Llorona (1984) and Lord of the Dawn: The Legend of Quetzalcóatl (1987) were both retellings of traditional Mexican folk stories, and The Farolitos of Christmas: A New Mexico Christmas Story (1985) was Anaya’s first children’s story. In 1985 he published an epic poem, The Adventures of Juan Chicaspatas. Anaya also served as an editor for numerous publications, as well as a translator and contributor to other Chicano works.
In 1992 Anaya published Alburquerque (the original spelling of the city’s name), the first in a new series of linked novels. The second novel, the highly praised murder mystery Zia Summer, followed in 1995. Rio Grande Fall was released in 1996, and the final installment of the loosely linked quartet was Shaman Winter, published in 1999.
Jalamanta: A Message from the Desert, published in 1996, was yet another departure in style for Anaya. The book employed an allegory to tell a mythical story. In 2000 he wrote another epic poem, this time aimed at middle and high school students. Elegy on the Death of César Chávez celebrated the life and struggles of the famed Chicano labor leader. The dust jacket and author notes provided factual details, and the poem moved the reader between grief and hope with a rallying cry for action.
Following his retirement from teaching in 1993, Anaya has devoted his time to writing and traveling. Like his mother before him, Anaya has remained tied to the land and in 2002 lived with his wife in Albuquerque, and like his father, he has satisfied his desire to wander by traveling extensively throughout South and Central America. Anaya, who spends several hours a day writing, told Publishers Weekly, “What I’ve wanted to do is compose the Chicano worldview—the synthesis that shows our true mestizo identity—and clarify it for my community and myself. Writing for me is a way of knowledge, and what I find illuminates my life.”
Awards
Premio Quinto Sol literary award for Bless Me, Ultima, 1970; New Mexico Distinguished Public Service Award, 1978, 1980; Natil Chicano Council on Higher Education fellowship, 1978–79; NEA fellowships, 1979, 1980; Before Columbus American Book Award, Before Columbus Foundation, for Tortuga, 1980; New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence and Achievement in Literature, 1980; literature award, Delta Kappa Gamma, New Mexico chapter, 1981; doctorate of humane letters, University of Albuquerque, 1981; Corporation for Public Broadcasting script development award for Rosa Linda, 1982; Award for Achievement in Chicano Literature, Hispanic Caucus of Teachers of English, 1983; W.K. Kellogg Foundation fellowship, 1983–85; doctorate of humane letters, Marycrest College, 1984; Mexican Medal of Friendship, Mexican Consulate of Albuquerque, 1986; PEN West Fiction Award, 1992, for Alburquerque.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechani
cal, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1979 by Rudolfo Anaya
Afterword © 2004 by Rudolfo Anaya
Cover design by Jason Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1180-8
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