Dancing with ghosts : a critical biography of Arturo Islas / Frederick Luis Aldama.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Aldama, Frederick Luis, 1969-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Islas, Arturo, 1938-1991.

Islas, Arturo.

Stanford University--Faculty--Biography.

Stanford University.

Authors, American--20th century--Biography.

Authors, American.

English teachers--United States--Biography.

English teachers.

United States.

Mexican Americans--Intellectual life.

Mexican Americans.

Mexican American authors--Biography.

Mexican American authors.

Mexican Americans in literature.

Universities and colleges--Faculty.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xix, 188 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [2005]

Summary:

This first critical biography of Arturo Islas (1938-1991) brings to life the complex and overlapping worlds inhabited by the gay Chicano poet, novelist, scholar, and professor. The book considers both the larger questions of Islas's life--his sexuality, racial identification, and political personality--and the events of his everyday existence, from his childhood in the borderlands of El Paso to his adulthood in San Francisco and at Stanford University. Aldama describes Islas's struggle with polio as a child, his near-death experience and ileostomy as a thirty-year-old beginning to explore his queer sexuality in San Francisco in the 1970s, and his fatal struggle with AIDS in the late 1980s. He also explores Islas's coming into the craft of poetry and fiction--his extraordinary struggle to publish his novels, as well as his pivotal role in paving the way for a new generation of Chicano/a scholars and writers. --From publisher description.

Contents:

"Sonny"

Bio-graphe

Sexuality

Death and rebirth

Being Chicano

Coda "A dancing with ghosts."

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 175-177) and index.

Modern Language Association Prize in United States Latina and Latino and Chicana and Chicano Literary and Cultural Studies, Winner, 2004

ISBN:

0520231880

9780520231887

0520243927

9780520243927

OCLC:

55220158

Online:

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description