Introduction by Maria Herrera-Sobek Crammed with delightful folk tales and legends, this is a novel about the people in one post-Revolutionary northern Mexico village.

A comedy of Mexican village life. A young girl, through jealousy, breaks off with her fiance then, repentant, tries to win him back with the aid of well meaning friends who only manage to involve her in further difficulties.

Josefina Niggli (1910–1983) was one of the most successful Mexican American writers of the early twentieth century. Born of European parents and raised in Mexico, she spent most of her adult life in the United States, and in her plays and novels she aimed to portray authentic Mexican experiences for English-speaking audiences. Niggli crossed borders, cultures, and genres, and her life and work prompt interesting questions about race, class, gender, modernity, ethnic and national identity, and the formation of literary canons. Although Niggli is perhaps best known for her fiction and folk plays, this anthology recovers her historical dramas, most of which have been long out of print or were never published. These plays are deeply concerned with the aftermath of the 1910 Mexican Revolution, imagining its implications for Mexico, Mexican Americans, and U.S.-Mexico relations. Included are Mexican Silhouettes (1928), Singing Valley (1936), The Cry of Dolores (1936), The Fair God (1936), Soldadera (1938), This is Villa! (1939), and The Ring of General Macias (1943). These works reflect on the making of history and often portray the Revolution through the lens of women’s experiences. Also included in this volume are an extensive critical introduction to Niggli, a chronology of her life and writings, plus letters and reviews by, to, and about Josefina Niggli. that provide illuminating context for the plays. Best Books for Special Interests, selected by the American Association of School Librarians, and Outstanding Book, selected by the Public Library Association “The Best of the Best of the University Presses: Books You Should Know About” presented at the 2008 American Library Association Annual Conference

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 2- (B-), Dresden Technical University (Institute for Anglistics/American Studies), course: Chicano/a Presences, language: English, abstract: Introduction Chicano/a Movement & Chicano/a Literature As there are some people who have never heard the term Chicano/a, it is of utmost importance to start out with a definition. Chicanos are people of Mexican descent who live in the United States. They were either born there or immigrated with their families. Therefore a Chicano may seem like a Mexican-American. The difference is that the first term implies cultural awareness, whereas the other is rather neutral. In Chicano/a writing the essence not only is that the author is a Chicano/a, he or she even plants Chicano characters into a Chicano environment who use Chicano speech patterns. The first pieces of Chicano literature were produced after the Mexican War (1848), so that this is actually a rather young field of research. The origins, however, already lie in the late 16th century, when the Spaniards spread their language and religion, etc. From that background folktales and legends evolved, among them La Llorona, the weeping woman. In fact, many Chicano works of fiction revolve around her. Historically important here is the Treaty of Guadelupe-Hidalgo from 1848. After the so-called Mexican War (1846-1848), Mexico had to cede large parts of its land, much of the Mexican Southwest (Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, California), to the U.S., and in the short run those Mexicans who lived there had to choose between either Mexican or American citizenship. It is their descendants who later developed poetry, narratives and corri-dos. Corridos are ballads in Spanish, altogether forming a cultural history. Up to the present day, they have not ceased to exist. By 1900, Chicano literature played a role in the United States. Since many Mexican-Americans spoke Spanish and were catholic, those two were its first features. Around the same time also the first novels and stories were published. Things changed in 1945 at the latest, with the appearance of Josephina Niggli′s Mexican Village. Influenced by the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s (also the time of the so-called Chicano Movement [1965-1975]), Chicano publishing houses were founded. Only then could the literary field spread its wings and make way for movies and plays. A more recent development is the emergence of strong Chicana writing, aiming at voices of Mexican or Mexican-American women finally being heard and thus among others dealing with Mexican icons such as La Malinché, the Virgin of Guadelupe and the aforementioned La Llorona. [...]

Born in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico in 1910, Josefina María Niggli was one of the first Latina writers to have her work published in the United States—and thus one of the first to introduce American audiences to the culture and people flourishing along the U.S.–Mexico border. Well ahead of what is now called Chicano literature, her writings—spanning a broad range of genres, subjects, and styles—offer an insider's view of the everyday lives little known or noted outside of their native milieu. In Niggli's plays, for instance, these often invisible working class Mexicans were literally elevated to the public stage, their hidden reality given expression. A long-overdue gathering of Niggli's work, this volume showcases the writer's remarkable literary versatility, as well as the groundbreaking nature of her writing, which in many ways established a blueprint for future generations of writers and readers of Chicano literature. This collection includes Niggli's most famous and influential work, Mexican Village—a literary chronicle of Hidalgo, Mexico, which explores the distinct nature and tensions of Mexican life—along with her novel Step Down, Elder Brother, and five of her most well-known plays.

The work of one of the earliest Mexican American women writers who focused on life lived between two cultures and nations is the subject of this new literary study.

This is a collection of ten absorbing stories, rich in setting, tense in action, and warm in their sympathy with the human comedy. The main interest in all the stories is the comedy or tragedy in the lives of the people, but each story has its own enveloping action of excitement and color. Pervading the whole is an authentic folk life--Christian and pagan marvelously mixed. Originally published in 1945. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.