| The Santa Fe International Literary Festival will pay tribute to the legacy of late New Mexican author and Professor Emeritus Rudolfo Anaya, the celebrated godfather of Chicano literature and recipient of the National Medal of Arts. Acclaimed authors Denise Chávez and Luis Alberto Urrea take the Festival stage on Sunday, May 21 at 2 p.m. at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center with “Recuerdos y Respeto: Homage to Rudolfo Anaya.” The two will bring Anaya into the room with personal reminiscences of their friendship with the author, insights on his literary legacy, and select readings of his works. Chávez is an alumna of the UNM English Department with an honorary doctorate from UNM. She is the American Book Award-winning author of The King and Queen of Comezón, Loving Pedro Infante, A Taco Testimony: Meditations on Family, Food and Culture, and Face of an Angel. The owner of Casa Camino Real Bookstore in Las Cruces, Chávez is widely known as an activist for books and writers in the New Mexico borderlands. She was the founder and director of the Border Book Festival and is currently director and co-founder of the Border Servant Corps project, Libros para el Viaje/Books for the Journey, which delivers books to refugee, migrant, and asylum-seeking children and families on the US–Mexico border. Urrea is a multi-award-winning author of the celebrated historical novels The Hummingbird’s Daughter and Queen of America. Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and American mother, Urrea’s books span a range of genres, including The Devil’s Highway, a nonfiction account of a group of Mexican immigrants lost in the Arizona desert, and the novels Into the Beautiful North, The House of Broken Angels, and his latest, Good Night, Irene, inspired by his mother ’s service in the Red Cross. “Recuerdos y Respeto: Homage to Rudolfo Anaya” is part of the Festival’s tradition of honoring a significant New Mexican writer posthumously, and the event comes during a time of great honor for Mr. Anaya. This year’s UNM Alumni Association selected Anaya for the prestigious James F. Zimmerman Award, and University Libraries reached its fundraising goal to create the Rudolfo Anaya Sala in Zimmerman Library, a space for the community near where Anaya’s manuscript collection rests in the Center for Southwest Research & Special Collections. For tickets to “Recuerdos y Respeto: Homage to Rudolfo Anaya,” visit the Festival’s website at https://www.sfinternationallitfest.org/. |
Join Us for Remembering Rudolfo Anaya at the Santa Fe International Literary Festival
