Klail City is the pivotal novel in HinjosaÍs continuing saga, the Klail City Death Trip Series. It is concerned with power as articulated through the disjunctive class and race relations between Texas Mexicans and Texas Anglos in the lower Rio Grande Valley. In his desire to help recreate the kaleidoscopic past, Hinojosa employs four generations of storytellers who thoroughly mesmerize the reader with their tales of tragic realism, alienation and desire. Klail City (in its Spanish version) is the winner of Latin AmericaÍs most prestigious literary award, the Casa de las Am?ricas Prize. It has been published in German and now, HinojosaÍs own English-language version is available. Rolando Hinojosa is the best known and most prolific Mexican American novelist. His works, which form a continuing, ever-evolving saga of life in the small border towns in TexasÍs lower Valley, are acclaimed for their fine sense of wit and pathos and their ability to capture the nuances of oral language.

Mirroring the linguistic and cultural evolution of those living on the Texas-Mexico border, Rolando Hinojosa's Klail City Death Trip Series examines relations between Mexican Americans and Anglo Americans born and raised in the fictional Rio Grande Valley town of Klail Citym Texas. Depicting the transformation of a place and its people "from a sleepy agricultural and ranching backwater of Mexican and American society and history" over a 30-year period, the series comprises fifteen books, published between 1973 and 2006, and reflects the importance of the growing Hispanic population in the U.S. The people of Hinojosa's Klail City, which has been compared to William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County and Gabriel García Márquez's Macondo, have dealt with the same issues as their real-life counterparts living along the border, including discrimination, generational change, drug violence and the quest for women's rights. The editors of this scholarly volume assert in their introduction that the series, with volumes in English, Spanish and a mix of both languages, "may well be the most innovative and complex project of literary creation ever conceived and realized by a writer based in the United States." The eleven essays in this volume consider both broad and specialized aspects of the Klail City Death Trip Series. Divided into two sections, the chapters in the first half examine the series as a whole and look at general topics such as cultural hybridity, the individual's needs versus those of society and the influence of Hispanic literary tradition on Hinojosa's work. The essays in the second half explore more specific aspects, including Klail City youth going to war, women's search for autonomy in the face of societal and familial tradition and a comparison of Hinojosa's The Valley with Larry McMurtry's The Last Picture Show as examples of Hispanic and Anglo literary traditions that developed in the same region. Also included is an interview with Rolando Hinojosa, the Ellen Clayton Garwood Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the recipient of numerous literary awards, including 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, the National Award for Chicano Literature, in 1972. This collection is an essential tool for scholars and students alike in understanding the work of Rolando Hinojosa and the people living a bilingual, bicultural life along the Texas-Mexico border.

Becky and Her Friends, by Rolando Hinojosa, is the latest novel in HinojosaÍs Klail City Death Trip series which follows generations of Anglos and Mexicans in the fictional Rio Grande Valley town of Klail City, Texas. In this novel, however, Hinojosa focuses on a character who has previously not taken the limelight: the strong-willed, upwardly mobile Becky Escobar. Following her story, Hinojosa explores the world of Latinas: womenÍs culture, language and spirit in the world of the Valley. Delightfully playful in narrative perspective, this story gives the reader a glimpse through the eyes of the female side of Klail City.

Welcome to Klail City, in Belken County, along the Mexico border in Texas' Rio Grande Valley. In the weeks leading up to the Democratic primary, Jehu Malacara chronicles the political rabble-rousing of Klail City's wealthiest citizens in letters to his cousin Rafe Buenrostro. Led by Arnold "Noddy" Perkins, the who's who of Belken County create a complex web of relationships. Wrangling bank loans, club memberships, and local politics, Perkins dominates the political and economic landscape of the community. When Malacara turns up missing, and the writer, P. Galindo, begins interviewing the citizens, tales of deceit and betrayal float to the surface. From Jehu's knockout girlfriend Ollie to up-and-coming socialite Becky Escobar and even to old man Perkins himself, Hinojosa offers a feast of quirky characters and misdeeds. Part epistolary, part mystery novel, the population of Klail City makes an indelible impression. With an introduction by Hinojosa scholar Manuel Martín-Rodríguez, a professor at University of California Merced, this volume combines for the first time the English and Spanish-language versions of the novel that creates a fictitious community that The New York Times compared to William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha and Gabriel García Márquez's Macondo.

Geographically close to Mexico, but surrounded by Anglo-American culture in the United States, Chicanos experience many cultural tensions and contradictions. Their lifeways are no longer identical with Mexican norms, nor are they fully assimilated to Anglo-American patterns. Coping with these tensions—knowing how much to let go of, how much to keep—is a common concern of Chicano writers, who frequently use satire as a means of testing norms and deviations from acceptable community standards. In this groundbreaking study, Guillermo Hernández focuses on the uses of satire in the works of three authors—Luis Valdez, Rolando Hinojosa, and José Montoya—and on the larger context of Chicano culture in which satire operates. Hernández looks specifically at the figures of the pocho (the assimilated Chicano) and the pachuco (the zoot-suiter, or urbanized youth). He shows how changes in their literary treatment—from simple ridicule to more understanding and respect—reflect the culture's changes in attitude toward the process of assimilation. Hernández also offers many important insights into the process of cultural definition that engaged Chicano writers during the 1960s and 1970s. He shows how the writers imaginatively and syncretically formed new norms for the Chicano experience, based on elements from both Mexican and United States culture but congruent with the historical reality of Chicanos. With its emphasis on culture change and creation, Chicano Satire will be of interest across a range of human sciences.

The first novel in the Rafe Buenrostro Mystery series features murder and mayhem along the Texas-Mexico border. Long out of print, this novel originally published in 1985 foreshadowed the violence now taking place along the border.

Feminism, Nation and Myth explores the scholarship of La Malinche, the indigenous woman who is said to have led Cortés and his troops to the Aztec city of Tenochtitlán. The figure of La Malinche has generated intense debate among literature and cultural studies scholars. Drawing from the humanities and the social sciences, feminist studies, queer studies, Chicana/o studies, and Latina/o studies, critics and theorists in this volume analyze the interaction and interdependence of race, class, and gender. Studies of La Malinche demand that scholars disassemble and reconstruct concepts of nation, community, agency, subjectivity, and social activism. This volume originated in the 1999 "U.S. Latina/Latino Perspectives on la Malinche" conference that brought together scholars from across the nation. Filmmaker Dan Banda interviewed many of the presenters for his documentary, Indigenous Always: The Legend of La Malinche and the Conquest of Mexico. Contributors include Alfred Arteaga, Antonia Castañeda, Debra Castillo, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Deena González, María Herrera Sobek, Guisela Latorre, Luis Leal, Sandra Messinger Cypess, Franco Mondini-Ruiz, Amanda Nolacea Harris, Rolando J. Romero, and Tere Romo. These academic essays are complemented by the creative work of Alicia Gaspar de Alba and José Emilio Pacheco, both of whom evoke the figure of La Malinche in their work.