The University of Arizona Press
November 13, 2017
Author, poet, and Angeleno, Daniel A. Olivas is known for his provocative prose and cleverly crafted characters. Recently, High Country News featured an excerpt from his short story “In Line at the Great Wall,” from his collection The King of Lighting Fixtures. In this story, Olivas imagines a future where anti-immigrant sentiment is enshrined in a border wall:
Rogelio stood in the long line that snaked from the detention center’s barracks to the lookout point at the other end of the compound. He shifted from foot to foot, the heat making him perspire and feel lightheaded. He was a smart boy — one of the best students in Ms. Becerra’s fifth-grade class — so he figured that even though the cool winter weather still made San Diego’s evenings chilly enough to need a sweater, the lack of circulation combined with the body heat of thousands of children conspired to make the detention center’s air heavy and almost suffocating.
Read “The Great Wall” in its entirety on High Country News.
