The second installment in Rolando Hinojosa’s acclaimed Klail City Death Trip Series returns to South Texas, where Mexicans and Anglos share an uneasy coexistence.
Don Aureliano Mora waits three years for justice after his son, a World War II veteran, is murdered by a Belken County Deputy Sheriff. When the Anglo gets away with murder, Don Aureliano takes matters—in the shape of a crowbar—into his own hands, pulverizing the plaque in old Klail City Park that honors the town’s World War II vets.
The younger generation has to fight for equality, too. The Texas Mexican boys playing high school football in Klail City didn’t get letter jackets, even though all of their Anglo peers did. And when the Mexican boys weren’t interested in hustling for the ball the following year, the school board came up with enough money for all the eligible players to get letter jackets. In the end it didn’t really matter; several of the Mexican boys died in the Korean War. But life goes on in Klail City. The rains come and go, crops are raised and people are buried.
This is the first bilingual edition ever available of this important novel. Originally published in Cuba in the 70s, the Spanish edition won the esteemed Casa de las Américas Prize in 1976. The English-language version was published by Arte Público in 1987. Frequently compared to William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha and Gabriel García Márquez’s Macondo, Rolando Hinojosa’s Klail City Death Trip Series is required reading for anyone interested in life along the Texas-Mexico border in the twentieth century.
Click here to listen to an interview with Rolando Hinojosa about Klail City/Klail City y Sus Alrededores.
“Like Faulkner, [Hinojosa] has created a fictional county, invested it with centuries of complex history, and populated it with generations of families and a host of unique characters.”—World Literature Today
“Although his sharp eye and accurate ear capture a place, its people and a time in a masterly way, his work goes far beyond regionalism. He is a writer for all readers.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Rolando Hinojosa is one of Texas’ most remarkable writers. The Klail City Death Trip Series is one of Faulknerian dimensions.”—Dallas Times Herald
“Rolando Hinojosa has established himself as sole owner and proprietor of fictional Belken County, which, like the author’s native Mercedes, is situated in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. If Belken is the Lone Star Yoknapatawpha, Hinojosa is its Faulkner.”—The Texas Observer
“…The Klail City Death Trip series continues to evolve both as a criticism and a celebration; altogether the novels constitute a lovingly accurate recreation of Valley people, politics, speech, social attitudes- even the weather.”—Austin American-Statesman
ROLANDO HINOJOSA, the Ellen Clayton Garwood Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Texas at Austin, is the recipient of numerous literary awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award; the most prestigious prize in Latin American fiction, Casa de las Américas, for the best Spanish American novel in 1976; and the Premio Quinto Sol in 1974. His novels include The Valley / Estampas del Valle, Ask a Policeman, The Useless Servants, and Dear Rafe / Mi querido Rafa, all published by Arte Público Press.
Learn more by visiting his faculty page.
