Libros en Espanol Books

A good book for intermediate to advanced students of Spanish. It is believed to be the first example of Chicano literature. This book can be revealing as a lesson in the struggle new immigrants face in the US. This was written long ago but in many ways, little had changed.

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, born in France in 1940, was declared in 1994 France's number one novelist. Primarily a resident of New Mexico, he makes frequent journeys into Mexico, studying cloely her land, history and peoples, from which he has also writtenLa conquista divina de Michoacan (Cuadernos de La Gaceta), Las profecias del Chilam Balam, and El sueno mexicano, published in English as The Mexican Dream: Or, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilizations.

In handling the political and sentimental history of the great Mexican painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, he turns for source material, among others, to Frida: Una Biografia de Frida Kahlo and La Fabulosa Vida de Diego Rivera. All of this source material serves to produce a lively and eminently readable synthesis in this excellent novelist's skill and art. Skipping the historical record we do well to find the living reality in all its aspects here in this one book.

Frida received only one exposition of her art during her lifetime. Now a comprehensive collection is on display in the city of Mexico. Diego saw the Rockefellers destroy his internationally acclaimed and heroic art in Manhattan. Now is the time to recall fully their history and their struggles as well as their life long sustaining love, so well retold within the pages of this one book.