All That Rises

Dive into the borderlands with this debut novel from Alma García. (Think: Luis Alberto Urrea and Barbara Kingsolver mash-up.)

In the border city of El Paso, Texas, two guardedly neighboring families have plunged headlong into a harrowing week. Rose Marie DuPre, wife and mother, has abandoned her family. On the doorstep of the Gonzales home, long-lost rebel Inez appears. As Rose Marie’s husband, Huck (manager of a maquiladora), and Inez’s brother, Jerry (a college professor), struggle separately with the new shape of their worlds, Lourdes, the Mexican maid who works in both homes, finds herself entangled in the lives of her employers, even as she grapples with a teenage daughter who only has eyes for el otro lado—life, American style.

All That Rises is about secrets, lies, border politics, and discovering where you belong—within a family, as well as in the world beyond. It is a novel for the times we live in, set in a place many people know only from the news.

La Plonqui, The Literary Life and Work of Margarita Cota-Cárdenas

Get inspired by one of the foremost writers in the Chicana movement, Margarita Cota-Cárdenas. 

Editors Jesús Rosales and Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez celebrate more than 40 years of creative writing by Cota-Cárdenas in this volume which includes critical essays, reflections, interviews, and previously unpublished writing by the author herself to document the lifelong craft and legacy of a pioneering writer in the field.

Nicknamed “La Plonky” by her family after a made-up childhood song, Cota-Cárdenas grew up in California, taught almost exclusively in Arizona, and produced five major works (two novels and three books of poetry) that offer an expansive literary production spanning from the 1960s to today. Her perspectives on Chicana identity, the Chicanx movement, and the sociopolitical climate of Arizona and the larger U.S.-Mexico border region represent a significant contribution to the larger body of Chicanx literature.

Chicana Portraits, Critical Biographies of Twelve Chicana Writers

Want to learn about more Chicana writers?

Edited by Norma Elia Cantú with art by Raquel Valle-Sentíes, this innovative collection pairs portraits with critical biographies of twelve key Chicana writers, offering an engaging look at their work, contributions to the field, and major achievements. Artist Valle-Sentíes’ portraits bring visual dimension, while essays delve deeply into the authors’ lives for details that inform their literary, artistic, feminist, and political trajectories and sensibilities.

Extended Stay

Looking to jumpstart your Halloween season with a Latinx author? Read this horror novel by Juan Martinez.

In a rundown neighborhood in the heart of Las Vegas, the Alicia Hotel awakens and beckons to the most vulnerable—those with something to hide. After his parents are killed in a horrific roadside execution, Alvaro flees his home in Colombia and finds work as a line cook at the seedy hotel. Together with his sister, Carmen, he begins to make a new life in the desert, earning a promotion to management along with an irresistible offer to stay at the hotel rent-free. But as beloved photographs go missing, cockroaches seep from the walls, and grotesque strangers wander the corridors, the promise of the Alicia decays into nightmare.

Lotería, Nocturnal Sweepstakes

If poetry and divination is your style, read this bilingual collection by Elizabeth Torres.

The Colombian American poet threads together the stories of family dynamics and the realities of migration with the archetypes of tarot and the traditional Lotería game, used for centuries as an object of divination and entertainment. Through these themes and images, the poems in Lotería narrate intimate moments in the lives and journeys of migrants, refugees, and all who have been forced into metamorphosis in order to reach the other side of the river. Winner of the 2022 Ambroggio Prize of the Academy of American Poets, this collection showcases masterfully crafted and translated poems.

Juan Felipe Herrera: Migrant, Activist, Poet Laureate

Editors Francisco A. Lomelí and Osiris Aníbal Gómez explore everything from children’s literature to Chicanx indigeneity and social justice. 

For the first time, this book presents the distinguished, prolific, and highly experimental writer Juan Felipe Herrera. This wide-ranging collection of essays by leading experts offers critical approaches on Herrera, who transcends ethnic and mainstream poetics. It expertly demonstrates Herrera’s versatility, resourcefulness, innovations, and infinite creativity.

This book includes an extensive interview with the poet and a voluminous bibliography on everything by, about, and on the author. The chapters offer a deep dive into the life and work of an internationally beloved poet who, along with serving as the poet laureate of California and the U.S. poet laureate, creates work that fosters a deep understanding of and appreciation for people’s humanity.

About the University of Arizona Press

The University of Arizona Press (UA Press) is the premier publisher of academic, regional, and literary works in the state of Arizona. UA Press disseminates ideas and knowledge of lasting value that enrich understanding, inspire curiosity, and enlighten readers. UA Press advances the University of Arizona’s mission by connecting scholarship and creative expression to readers worldwide.

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