No one knows how Porfirio entered the United States. Some say he traveled on the winds of a sandstorm, others say he walked over the hills, and still others say he flew. In the first story of this masterful collection, Porfirio, the donkey, follows the very real, human flight north. Whimsical and magical, Porfirio’s journey becomes mythologized as part of the lore of the trail of people moving north.
From Doña Asunción, who by sheer force of will helps her terminally ill son outwit science…to a very exhausted Lady Death who has lost all interest in her vocation…to a bottle-blond phone sex girl who’s looking for love…González Viaña pens bold and powerful depictions of immigrant life. Infused with the hearty folk traditions of Latin America, these stories follow immigrants as they face fierce challenges in adapting to life on the other side of the border.
Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage
University of Houston
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Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Project is a national project to locate, identify, preserve and make accessible the literary contributions of U.S. Hispanics from colonial times through 1960 in what today comprises the fifty states of the United States.
Peruvian-born EDUARDO GONZALÉZ VIAÑA pens bold and powerful depictions of immigrant life as they face fierce challenges adapting to life on this side of the border. He holds a Ph.D. in Spanish Language and Literature, a law degree, and is a member of the Academy of Spanish Language. He came to the U.S. in 1990 as Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and joined the faculty at Western Oregon University in 1993. He has been awarded Peru’s National Prize for Literature, the Juan Rulfo Award, and the prestigious Latino Literature Prize by the Latin American Writers Institute of New York. He is the author of several collections of short stories, among them, Los sueños de América (Alfaguara, 2000), Las sombras y las mujeres (Mosca Azul Editores, 1996); and Batalla de Felice en la casa de Palomas (Editorial Losada, 1969), which won the Premio Nacional de Fomento a la Literatura. He is the author of four novels and two collections of essays. Los sueños de América was published in the English, American Dreams, by Arte Público Press in 2005. Arte Público will publish his novel, El corrido de Dante in 2006.
Learn more at elcorreodesalem.com.
