New Mexico's first Franciscan priest, Fray Angélico Cheavez (1910-1996) is known as a prolific historian, a literary and artistic figure, and an intellectual who played a vital role in Santa Fe's community of writers. The original essays collected here explore his wide-ranging cultural production: fiction, poetry, architectural restoration, journalism, genealogy, translation, and painting and drawing. Several essays discuss his approach to history, his archival research, and the way in which he re-centers ethnic identity in the prevalent Anglo-American master historical narrative. Others examine how he used fiction to bring history alive and combined visual and verbal elements to enhance his narratives. Two essays explore Chávez's profession as a friar. The collection ends with recollections by Thomas E. Chávez, historian and Fray Angélico's nephew. Readers familiar with Chávez's work as well as those learning about it for the first time will find much that surprises and informs in these essays.

Winner of the Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library Association As a teenager, Manuel Chávez (1910-1996) left his native New Mexico for over a decade of study at the St. Francis Seraphic Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, and other midwestern institutions. Included in his curriculum was an introduction to literature and the arts that piqued an interest that would follow him the remainder of his life. Upon returning to New Mexico, he was ordained Fray Angélico Chávez and would become one of New Mexico's most important twentieth-century writers. In The Life and Writing of Fray Angélico Chávez, Ellen McCracken provides a literary biography that includes a deep look into the intellectual and cultural contributions of this Renaissance man. McCracken moves chronologically through a substantial body of work that includes fiction, poetry, plays, essays, spiritual tracts, sermons, historical writing, translation, painting, church renovation, and journalism. From the prolific creativity of the years of his first assignment in Peña Blanca to the decades he spent researching Hispano genealogy in New Mexico, McCracken traces Chávez's complex and changing identity as an ethnic American and religious subject who was also an historian, artist, creative writer, and preservationist. The year 2010 will mark the centenary of Fray Angélico Chávez's birth, and this volume will serve as a fitting tribute.

This anthology is the first collection of fiction published since 1957 by one of New Mexico's leading men of letters.

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong . . . but time and chance happenethto them all. Ecclesiastes 9:11 With these words, the epitaph Padre Martinez chose for himself, the reader is drawn into a stirring and provocative biography recounted by a master storyteller. Fray Angelico Chavez, articulate and well-versed in New Mexicana, vividly records the life of the controversial Padre of Taos so that the reader gains full measure of his surroundings and of the times. Martinez was continually at the forefront of the public and political forums . . . a master of jurisprudence and canon law . . . a champion of the underdog. With the advent of Bishop Lamy, public attention became focused on these two dynamic personalities. Their philosophic differences ultimately led to Martinez' suspension and excommunication. Chavez was a curious and indefatigable researcher and he used these talents well while delving into the facts and legends surrounding Padre Martinez most poignant and colorful life-drama . . . a personality to be reckoned with, whether as hero or villain, or both. Readers will, at once, share with Chavez his absorption in this man and, also wonder . . . how such a phenomenon could have sprouted and bloomed under the most adverse circumstances of time and place.

Written as an autobiography, the author lets this famous willow wood statue speak for herself, tell her own story from the time she was brought to New Mexico in 1625 by Fray Benavides until the present. Many photographs bring this remarkable history to life. Fray Ang lico researched, translated and annotated facts about the statue's history, its religious society, its fiestas and chapels, correcting the mistakes and folklore held as truth for more than two centuries. Fray Ang lico Ch vez has been called a renaissance man and New Mexico's foremost twentieth-century humanist by biographer Ellen McCracken. Any way you measure his career, Fray Ang lico Ch vez was an unexpected phenomenon in the wide and sunlit land of the American Southwest. In the decades following his ordination as a Franciscan priest in 1937, Ch vez performed the difficult duties of an isolated backcountry pastor. His assignments included Hispanic villages and Indian pueblos. As an army chaplain in World War II, he accompanied troops in bloody landings on Pacific islands, claiming afterwards that because of his small stature, Japanese bullets always missed him. In time, despite heavy clerical duties, Fray Ang lico managed to become an author of note, as well as something of an artist and muralist. Upon all of his endeavors, one finds, understandably, the imprint of his religious perspective. During nearly seventy years of writing, he published almost two dozen books. Among them were novels, essays, poetry, biographies, and histories. Sunstone Press has brought back into print some of these rare titles.

This book is considered to be the starting place for anyone having family history ties to New Mexico, and for those interested in the history of New Mexico. Well before Jamestown and the Pilgrims, New Mexico was settled continuously beginning in 1598 by Spaniards whose descendants still make up a major portion of the population of New Mexico.