Critical Mappings of Arturo Islas's Fictions

The seventeen essays and interviews collected in Critical Mappings of Arturo Islas’s Fictions aim to enliven and enrich our understanding of one of our most important authors of contemporary Chicano/a letters. The late Arturo Islas wrote three novels including The Rain God and Migrant Souls, as well as many short stories. For much of his career, his work was rejected by the worlds of both mainstream and Chicano literature because of its experimental style and themes that focus on Chicanos learning to negotiate borders between nations, races, genders—and sexualities. This combination of early and recent essays explores his work, addressing issues of technique, publishing in a prejudiced marketplace, and borderland racial and sexual identity. The essays map Islas’s oeuvre to clear a space for the expression of a complex Chicano identity within a contemporary American canon. A number of scholars have contributed, including Erlinda Gonzales-Berry, José David Saldívar, Rosaura Sánchez, and Renato Rosaldo, in addition to Aldama.