Alburquerque

by Rudolfo Anaya

Overview

"Alburquerque is a rich and tempestuous book, full of love and compassion, the complex and exciting skullduggery of politics, and the age-old quest for roots, identity, family. . . . There is a marvelous tapestry of interwoven myth and magic that guides Anaya's characters' sensibilities, and is equally important in defining their feel of place. Above all, in this novel is a deep caring for land and culture and for the spiritual well-being of people, environment, landscape."—John Nichols, author of The Milagro Beanfield War: A Novel

". . . Alburquerque portrays a quest for knowledge. . . . [It] is a novel about many cultures intersecting at an urban, power-, and politics-filled crossroads, represented by a powerful white businessman, whose mother just happens to be a Jew who has hidden her Jewishness, . . . and a boy from the barrio who fathers a child raised in the barrio but who eventually goes on to a triumphant assertion of his cross-cultural self."—World Literature Today

"Alburquerque fulfills two important functions: it restores the missing R to the name of the city, and it shows off Anaya's powers as a novelist."—Alan Cheuse, National Public Radio

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826340597
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	02/16/2006
Pages:	286
Sales rank:	461,225
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Rudolfo Anaya, widely acclaimed as one of the founders of modern Chicano literature, is professor emeritus of English at the University of New Mexico. Anaya was presented with the National Medal of Arts for literature in 2001 and his novel Alburquerque (the city's original Spanish spelling) won the PEN Center West Award for Fiction. He has also received the Premio Quinto Sol, the national Chicano literary award, the American Book Award from The Before Columbus Foundation, the Mexican Medal of Friendship from the Mexican Consulate, and the Western Literature Association's Distinguished Achievement Award. He is best known for the classic Bless Me Ultima.

What People are Saying About This

John Nichols

"A rich and tempestious book....above all, in this novel is a deep caring for the land and culture and for the spiritual well-being of people, environment, landscape....it has the courage to be full of hope."

Tony Hillerman

"A poet of the Llano in the barrio is back and at the top of his form."

Ismael Reid

"Anaya's fabulous pen takes us hundreds of years into the origins of the Indo-Hispanic literary culture...Mr. Anaya uses Albuquerque as a symbol for the issues that Americans must face in the 21st-century."

Editorial Reviews

Chicano novelist Anaya's explosive study of political patronage and the search for ethnic roots takes its title from a New Mexican legend. In 1880, an Anglo stationmaster reportedly took the first R out of Albuquerque's name, a move that symbolized the emasculation of the Mexican way of life. Set in the present, this absorbing novel focuses on a young boxer, fair-skinned Abran Gonzales, who is shattered by the revelation that his parents adopted him. He meets his real Anglo mother, dying of cancer, on her deathbed, then sets out on a quest for his Mexican father--who, the reader quickly learns, is Abran's acquaintance, the writer/professor Ben Chavez. Unscrupulous, rich lawyer Frank Dominic becomes Abran's manager, promising that he will hire a detective to locate Abran's father and reveal his identity to the slugger during the big comeback fight of his career. Dominic, a con artist who wants to turn Albuquerque into a Venice-like tourist trap, complete with casino-lined canals, is running for mayor against Marisa Martinez, an independent maverick. Dominic acquires nude photos of Martinez in compromising positions, which threatens to derail Abran's true romance and the city's future. Anaya ( Tortuga ) spins a touching love story woven into a tale of treachery, a microcosm of the social and economic dislocations squeezing the American Southwest. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Anaya's prowess shows through on every page..Thumbs up.

ABQ Arts

In his fifth novel, the best-selling author of Bless Me, Ultima ( LJ 2/1/73) sets an archetypal quest for the father in the city of ``Alburquerque'' (according to Anaya, the legendary spelling of the name), in which various characters vie for political power. Abran Gonzalez, a former Golden Gloves champion unaware that he was adopted, learns this secret from his biological mother on the night she dies. The revelation triggers a search for his father's identity that involves New Mexican politicos, a Rocky -like boxing match, and a man who believes his ancestors were bears. Other main characters also have murky ancestry; one Italian American even tries to prove that he was descended from the Duke of Albu(r)querque. At times melodramatic, the work has an intense spirituality that ultimately makes it mesmerizing. Highly recommended.-- Harold Augenbraum, Mer cantile Lib., New York

Library Journal