List of works by Gloria Anzaldúa

Gloria Anzaldúa (1942–2004) was a prolific Chicana writer of prose, fiction, and poetry.[1] After moving from her native Texas to California in 1977, she exclusively focused on her writing,[2] publishing dozens of pieces of writing before her death.[3] She left behind several manuscripts in progress when she died.[3]

Photo of Anzaldúa's face and long, beaded earrings
Gloria E. Anzaldúa in 1990

Among her most popular pieces of writing are This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981) and Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987; especially a section entitled "La conciencia de la mestiza/Towards a Mestiza Consciousness").[4] She wrote variously about feminism, the role of women of color in feminism, self-reflection, borderlands (particularly the space around the Mexico–United States border), Indigenous mythology and culture, and identity and contradiction.[5][6] She developed the framework of mestiza consciousness, contributed to the field of queer theory, and valued intersectionality over single-identity movements.[7] She is remembered as an especially influential writer in late nineteenth century cultural studies.[8]

Books

edit
Books written by Gloria E. Anzaldúa
Title Year Publisher Notes Ref.
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By Radical Women of Color 1981 Persephone Press Edited collection with Cherríe Moraga [9]
Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza 1987 Aunt Lute Books A text that exists within several genres [10][8]
Making Face, Making Soul / Hacienda Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color 1990 Aunt Lute Books Edited collection [10]
Interviews/Entrellistas 2000 Routledge Edited by AnaLouise Keating [10]
this bridge we call home: radical visions for transformation 2002 Routledge Edited with AnaLouise Keating [10]
Light in the Dark / Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality 2015 Duke University Press Published after her death [11]
La Serpiente Que Se Come Su Cola: The Death and Rebirth Rites-of-Passage of a Chicana Lesbian Never published [12]
La Prieta Never published, intended to be a "novel/collection of stories" [13]

Articles and essays

edit
Articles and essays written by Gloria E. Anzaldúa
Title Year Publication Notes Ref.
"Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers" 1981 This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color Written in the epistolary format [14]
"La Prieta" 1981 Anzaldúa began writing this essay in 1979 and finished it in 1981. An autohistoria [15]
"En Rapport, In Opposition: Cobrando cuentas a las nuestras" 1987 Sinister Wisdom [16]
"Bridge, Drawbridge, Sandbar, or Island: Lesbians-of-Color Hacienda Alianzas" 1990 Bridges of Power: Women's Multicultural Alliances A longer version of a 1988 speech [17]
"Metaphors in the Tradition of the Shaman" 1990 Conversant Essays: Contemporary Poets on Poetry [18]
"To(o) Queer the Writer – Loca, escritora y chicana" 1991 Inversions: Writing by Dykes, Queers, and Lesbians An edited transcript [19]
"Border Arte: Nepantla, el Lugar de la Frontera" 1993 La Frontera/The Border: Art about the Mexico/United States Border Experience Discussion of Coyolxauhqui, autohistoria, nepantla, and the visual arts [20]
"Foreword" 1996 Cassell's Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol and Spirit Discusses spirituality. Worked on a longer version until her death [21]
"Let us be the healing of the wound: The Coyolxauhqui imperative – la sombra y el sueño" 2005 One Wound for Another / Una Herida por otra: Testimonios de Latin@s in the U.S. through Cyberspace (11 de septiembre de 2001 – 11 de marzo de 2002) Final essay published before her death, about post-September 11th policy and nepantla [22]
"Born Under the Sign of the Flower: Los jotos in Ancient Mexico and Modern Aztlán" Unpublished essay, written in the 1980s about the HIV/AIDS pandemic [23]
"S.I.C.: Spiritual Identity Crisis" Unpublished essay, written before 1999 about her diabetes diagnosis [24]
"Spiritual Activism: Making Altares, Making Connections" Unpublished essay, written before 1999 about the HIV/AIDS pandemic [25]

Fiction

edit
Short stories by Gloria E. Anzaldúa
Title Year Publication Notes Ref.
"El Paisano is a Bird of Good Omen" 1982/1983 Conditions and Cuentos: Stories by Latinas Began writing in 1974 as "La Boda" and conceptualized in the early 1980s as a sequence in a novel. Prietita story [26][27][28]
"People Should Not Die in June in South Texas" 1985/1993 My Story's On: Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Lives and Growing Up Latino: Reflections on Life in the United States Prietita story [29][30][18]
"La historia de una marimacha" 1989 Third Woman Press [18]
"Life Line" 1989 Lesbian Love Stories, vol. 1 [18]
"She Ate Horses" 1990 Lesbian Philosophies and Cultures [18]
"Ms. Right, My True Love, My Soul Mate" 1991 Lesbian Love Stories, vol. 2 [18]
"Ghost Trap / Trampa de espanto" 1992 New Chicana/Chicano Writing First written in 1990. Included in La Prieta. Humorous story [13]
"Puddles" 1992 Published in 1992, revised until at least 1998. Some of the revisions were substantial, including changing the point of view and the title (to "Velada de una lagartija") [31][18]
"Swallowing Fireflies / Tragando Luciérnagas" 2003 Telling Moments: Autobiographical Lesbian Short Stories [18]

All of her children's books,[32] and many of her short stories for children, feature Prieta/Prietita[A] as the main character.[34] Most of the Prietita stories remain unpublished,[26] as do many stories about childhood or written for children.[33] She wrote for stories for Mexican-American children to challenge the feelings of inferiority they learned in school as a project of "decolonizing, disindoctrinating ourselves from the oppressive messages we have been given".[35]

Children's books by Gloria E. Anzaldúa
Title Year Publisher Notes Ref.
Friends from the Other Side / Amigos del Otro Lado 1993 Children's Book Press Illustrated, bilingual [36][37][38]
Prietita and the Ghost Woman / Prietita y la Llorona 1995 Inverts the traditional reading of la Llorona as fearful [39][40]

Poems

edit

Anzaldúa included poems in her other writing, including her book Borderlands / La Frontera.[41] Scholar Ariana Vigil characterizes the poetry of Anzaldúa as a site of "necessary social critique", drawing upon her experiences that are "linked to a raced, working-class condition and subject".[42]

Poems by Gloria E. Anzaldúa
Title Year Publication Notes Ref.
"Tihueque" 1976 Tejidos Her first publication. Tihueque is Nahuatl for "now let us go". [43]
"To Delia, Who Failed on Principles" 2009 The Gloria E. Anzaldúa Reader Written in 1974, published posthumously [44]
"Reincarnation" [45]
"I Want to be Shocked Shitless" [46]
"The Occupant" Written around 1975, performed often in the 1980s; published posthumously [47]
"The New Speaker" Written in the 1970s, published posthumously [48]
"The coming of el mundo surdo" Written in 1977. Surdo is usually spelled zurdo, but Anzaldúa altered the spelling; published posthumously [49]
"Enemy of the State" Included in the 1985 version of Borderlands / La Frontera but not the published version; published posthumously [50]
"Del Otro Lado" [51]
"Encountering the Medusa" [52]
"The Presence" Written between 1984 and 1990, published posthumously [53]
"La vulva es una herida abierta / The vulva is an open wound" Written around 1990, published posthumously. Autobiographical poem [54]
"Yemayá" Written before 1991, published posthumously. Discusses the Yoruban goddess Yemayá [55]
"How to" Written and revised until 1997, published posthumously [56]
"Healing Wounds" Written and revised until 2002, published posthumously [57]
"Like a spider in her web" [58]
"The Postmodern Llorona" Written and revised until 2003, published posthumously [59]
"Llorona Coyolxauhqui" Written and revised until 2003, published posthumously. Discusses la Llorona, Coyolxauhqui, nepantla, and el cenote [60]
"When I write I hover" Prose poem, published posthumously [61]

Notes and references

edit

Notes

edit
  1. ^ Prieta means 'the dark one' and Prietita means 'the little dark one'. Anzaldúa was referred to by these names and reclaimed them in her fiction.[33]

Citations

edit
  1. ^ Keating 2009, pp. 1, 4, 325, 335.
  2. ^ Keating 2009, p. 4.
  3. ^ a b Keating 2009, pp. 4, 6.
  4. ^ Keating 2009, pp. 5, 8.
  5. ^ Keating 2009, pp. 8–10.
  6. ^ Perez 2022, p. 160.
  7. ^ Keating 2009, pp. 5, 10.
  8. ^ a b Perez 2022, p. 154.
  9. ^ Keating 2009, pp. 72, 337.
  10. ^ a b c d Keating 2009, p. 337.
  11. ^ Gutierrez-Perez 2017, p. 306.
  12. ^ Keating 2009, p. 70.
  13. ^ a b Keating 2009, p. 157.
  14. ^ Keating 2009, p. 26.
  15. ^ Keating 2009, p. 38.
  16. ^ Keating 2009, p. 111.
  17. ^ Keating 2009, p. 140.
  18. ^ a b c d e f g h Keating 2009, p. 338.
  19. ^ Keating 2009, p. 163.
  20. ^ Keating 2009, p. 176.
  21. ^ Keating 2009, p. 229.
  22. ^ Keating 2009, p. 303.
  23. ^ Hey-Colon 2022, p. 39.
  24. ^ Hey-Colon 2022, p. 25.
  25. ^ Hey-Colon 2022, p. 32.
  26. ^ a b Keating 2005, p. 11.
  27. ^ Woodward 1989, p. 530.
  28. ^ Keating 2009, p. 51.
  29. ^ Blanchard 2005, p. 35.
  30. ^ Keating 2005, pp. 11, 256.
  31. ^ Hey-Colon 2022, pp. 17, 22, 37.
  32. ^ Vásquez 2005, p. 64.
  33. ^ a b Millán 2015, p. 204.
  34. ^ Blanchard 2005, p. 34.
  35. ^ Rebolledo 2006, p. 283.
  36. ^ Lunsford 1998, p. 2.
  37. ^ Millán 2015, p. 207.
  38. ^ Rebolledo 2006, pp. 279, 284.
  39. ^ Rebolledo 2006, pp. 279, 283–284.
  40. ^ Vásquez 2005, p. 66.
  41. ^ Vigil 2016, p. 86.
  42. ^ Vigil 2016, pp. 87–88.
  43. ^ Keating 2009, p. 19.
  44. ^ Keating 2009, p. 20.
  45. ^ Keating 2009, p. 21.
  46. ^ Keating 2009, p. 23.
  47. ^ Keating 2009, p. 22.
  48. ^ Keating 2009, p. 24.
  49. ^ Keating 2009, p. 36.
  50. ^ Keating 2009, p. 97.
  51. ^ Keating 2009, p. 99.
  52. ^ Keating 2009, p. 101.
  53. ^ Keating 2009, p. 119.
  54. ^ Keating 2009, p. 198.
  55. ^ Keating 2009, p. 242.
  56. ^ Keating 2009, p. 232.
  57. ^ Keating 2009, p. 249.
  58. ^ Keating 2009, p. 276.
  59. ^ Keating 2009, p. 280.
  60. ^ Keating 2009, p. 295.
  61. ^ Keating 2009, p. 238.

Works cited

edit