Line of Fire: Detective Stories from the Mexican Border

Line of Fire is a revised edition of En la línea de fuego: Relatos policiacos de frontera, originally published in Spanish by Fondo Editorial Tierra Adentro, Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, México, D.F., 1990.

In addition to the editor's critical introduction, there are stories by Gabriel Trujillo Muñoz, Héctor Daniel Gómez Nieves, Leobardo Saravia Quiroz, Edgar Gómez Castellanos, José Manuel Di Bella, Carlos Martín Gutiérrez, Federico Campbell, Harry Polkinhorn, and Sergio Gómez Montero. 

From the Introduction by L. Saravia Quiroz: "It is not simply an anthology of detective stories about Baja California, but rather an effort by a group of writers to devise detective fiction that does not conform to the orthodoxy of the genre. A thematic anthology needs a tradition that gives it life and supports it. But such a tradition does not exist either in Baja California or in the rest of Mexico. The authors of these pages were inspired by the stimuli of daily events, remarkable occurrences, and the observation of a singular reality. In the stories selected, the interest lies in the psychological complexity of certain characters, in the motives and factors that lead to the crime, and in the culmination as the finger pulls the trigger. It is a testimonial of admiration and fidelity to a global literary tradition that is not losing, but gaining devotees and readers every day."

by Marco Antonio Samaniego; translated by Curtis W. Long
Paper/ Pages: 94 pages/ $15 plus shipping/handling
ISBN 1-879691-35-3
1995

Winner of the Augustín Yáñez Award for 1992, The Whispering Voices of Atabalpa was originally published in 1993 as Donde las voces se guardan by Planeta Mexicana Publishers, Mexico City.  This is the fifth in SDSU Press's "Baja California Literature in Translation" series.

The Border: The Future of Postmodernity

Linking concepts of the border and postmodernism, these essays explore some of the key thematics of contemporay intellectual life. Regional versus national culture, the relationship of indigenous sources to the cultural politics of a centrist state, and the creation of a tradition of the literary essay are just some of the topics covered here. The author organizes his thought on a model derived from linguistics, cultural anthropology, political economy, and cultural criticism. Sergio Gómez Montero is widely recognized as one of the most important thinkers in northern Mexico. His contributions to cultural criticism, public administration, and pedagogy span several decades of activity. Gómez Montero resides in Mexicali.

In This Corner...
Short Plays by Rosina Conde, Ignacio Flores de la Lama, Juan Carlos Rea, and Hugo Salcedo

Within the pages of In This Corner, readers will find how pugilistic intrigue and marital mayhem can make for a knockout assortment of short theatrical pieces. This varied collection marries the work of Rosina Conde, Ignacio Flores de la Lama, Juan Carlos Rea, and Hugo Salcedo and while each author brings her and his own literary twist to the sordid and unpredictable mysteries of married life, all set the action in a boxing ring--domestic gnosis meets Madison Square Garden. Whether you have ever been married, divorced, or, for that matter, if you have ever laced up gloves and jumped into that turbulent ring called romance, here is a dramatic treasure trove of compelling, sometimes disturbing, and always entertaining vignettes.

Nailed to the Wound

This collection of fourteen short stories presents for the first time in English translation a representative collection of one of Baja California's most innovative contemporary fiction writers. Di Bella's sources of literary inspiration are manifold and cosmopolitan, such as Joyce, Carpentier, Pirandello, and Borges. To these are added the impacts of daily life on characters as diverse as seedy gamblers, adulterers, psychologists, writers, the Three Musketeers, translators, bank workers, mimes, and a host of others. An integral part of the Baja California literary Renaissance of the 1980s and following, Di Bella has long been active as an editor of various significant journals (El oficio, Trazadura), an organizer of reading series and large binational border-literature conferences, and a teacher of creative writing for children throughout the state of Baja California. He resides in Mexicali.
 

by Gabriel Trujillo Muñoz; translated by Patricia L. Irby, Robert L. Jones, and Gustavo V. Segade

Gabriel Trujillo Muñoz was born in Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico, in 1958. He is a poet, fiction writer, cultural journalist, essayist, editor of anthologies. Permanent Work gathers representative poems from the last decade of his production. His record of publicatons is the most extensive among current writers of Baja California. Among his published works are (prose fiction) Mexicali: crónicas de infancia (1990), Miríada (1991); (poetry) Rituales (1982), Percepciones (1983), Moridero (1987), Mandrágora (1989), A plena luz (1992); and (essays) Tres ensayos sobre el ensayo bajacaliforniano (1988), La ciencia ficción: conocimiento y literatura (1991), and Señas y reseñas (1993). Trujillo Muñoz's literary historical research includes Parvada, poetas jóvenes de Baja California (1985), Lecturas de Baja California (1990), and Un camino de hallazgos: Poetas bajacalifornianos del siglo XX (1992). He works for the Autonomous University of Baja California in Mexicali, where he resides.