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2023 Southwest Book Award Winners

January 24, 2024

We are thrilled to announce that two of our books were recently selected as 2023 Southwest Book Award winners! Nuclear Nuevo México by Myrriah Gómez and Rim to River: Looking into the Heart of Arizona by Tom Zoellner have both been selected by the Border Regional Library Association, along with four other books. See the full list of 2023 winning titles at the BRLA website.

The Border Regional Library Association (BRLA) “is an organization founded in 1966 for the promotion of library service and librarianship in the El Paso/Las Cruces/Juárez Metroplex. Current membership includes over 100 Librarians, Paraprofessionals, Media Specialists, Library Friends and Trustees from all types of libraries in the Tri-State area of Trans-Pecos Texas, Southern New Mexico and Northern Chihuahua.”

About the books:

Contrary to previous works that suppress Nuevomexicana/o presence throughout U.S. nuclear history, Nuclear Nuevo México focuses on recovering the voices and stories that have been lost or ignored in the telling of this history. By recuperating these narratives, Myrriah Gómez tells a new story of New Mexico, one in which the nuclear history is not separate from the collective colonial history of Nuevo México but instead demonstrates how earlier eras of settler colonialism laid the foundation for nuclear colonialism in New Mexico.

Gómez examines the experiences of Nuevomexicanas/os who have been impacted by the nuclear industrial complex, both the weapons industry and the commercial industry. Gómez argues that Los Alamos was created as a racist project that targeted poor and working-class Nuevomexicana/o farming families, along with their Pueblo neighbors, to create a nuclear empire. The resulting imperialism has left a legacy of disease and distress throughout New Mexico that continues today.

Tom Zoellner walked across the length of Arizona to come to terms with his home state. But the trip revealed more mountains behind the mountains.

Rim to River is the story of this extraordinary journey through redrock country, down canyons, up mesas, and across desert plains to the obscure valley in Mexico that gave the state its enigmatic name. The trek is interspersed with incisive essays that pick apart the distinctive cultural landscape of Arizona: the wine-colored pinnacles and complex spirituality of Navajoland, the mind-numbing stucco suburbs, desperate border crossings, legislative skullduggery, extreme politics, billion-dollar copper ventures, dehydrating rivers, retirement kingdoms, old-time foodways, ghosts of old wars, honky-tonk dreamers, murder mysteries, and magical Grand Canyon reveries.

Congratulations, Myrriah and Tom!

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