Interviews/Entrevistas
by Gloria
E. Anzaldua, Analouise Keating (Editor)
Gloria E. Anzaldua, best known for her books Borderlands/La
Frontera: The New Mestiza. and
This
Bridge Called My Back, is one of the foremost feminist
thinkers and activists of our time. As one of the first openly
lesbian Chicana writers, Anzaldua has played a major role in
redefining queer, female, and Chicano/a identities, and in
developing inclusionary movements for social justice.
In this memoir-like collection, Anzaldua's
powerful voice speaks clearly and passionately. She recounts her
life, explains many aspects of her thought, and explores the
intersections between her writings and postcolonial theory. Each
selection deepens our understanding of an important cultural
theorist's lifework. The interviews contain clear explanations of
Anzaldua's original concept of the Borderlands and mestizaje and
her subsequent revisions of these ideas; her use of the term New
Tribalism as a disruptive category that redefines previous
ethnocentric forms of nationalism; and what Anzaldua calls
conocimientos-- alternate ways of knowing that synthesize
reflection with action to create knowledge systems that challenge
the status quo.
Highly personal and always rich in insight,
these interviews, arranged and introduced by AnaLouise Keating,
will not only serve as an accessible introduction to Anzaldua's
groundbreaking body of work, but will also be of significant
interest to those already well-versed in her thinking. For readers
engaged in postcoloniality, feminist theory, ethnic studies, or
queer identity, Interviews/Entrevistas
will be a key contemporary document.
Among the most daring and influential of
feminist theorists, Gloria E. Anzaldúa has long valued the
interview process, considering it an intermediate form of
writing--"part of communicating, which is part of writing,
which is part of life"--as well as a means of self-discovery.
As a result, she has granted at least a hundred interviews over
the past 20 years, 10 of which, the earliest dating from 1982, are
collected here by AnaLouise Keating. Lightly edited to avoid
repetition, these interviews shed light on Anzaldúa's theories of
convergence and the mestizaje, her spiritual views, the
role of hallucinogenic drugs in her creativity, her literary
influences, and the genesis of her various books, especially her
best-known works, This
Bridge Called My Back and Borderlands/La
Frontera. In fact, since Anzaldúa's writings are so
intensely personal, readers new to her may find that starting with
the interviews makes as much sense as starting with her books.
Although most of these pieces have been previously published, it
is wonderful to have them in a single volume, and even better that
Keating has gone back to the original tapes or transcripts in
order to restore excised material--which almost always,
incidentally, deals with Anzaldúa's rich and complicated
spiritual life. Interviews/Entrevistas
offers welcome insight into a remarkable writer's mind. --Regina
Marler
About the Author
Gloria E. Anzaldua is a winner of the Before Columbus Foundation
American Book Award, the Lambda Lesbian Small Press Book Award, a
NEA Fiction Award, and the Sappho Award of Distinction. AnaLouise
Keating is Associate Professor of English at Aquinas College and
the author of Women
Reading Women Writing.
