Category: Author news

Alberto Ríos on Nogales, the Borderlands, and Joy in High Country News

Posted on by Mari Herreras

March 17, 2021

High Country News recently featured an essay by Alberto Álvaro Ríos, author of A Good Map of All Things, published by the University of Arizona Press. A Good Map, Ríos honors his family between the chapters, but the new picaresque novel presents brightly unique characters who love fiercely and nurture those around them in a whimsical yet familiar town in the Pimería Alta

The High Country News essay, “In Nogales, joy endures,” Ríos shares a snapshot of his hometown, Nogales, Arizona, and the true joy that exists on the border.

From the essay:

“In all the talk of the border, that word is used as if it defined this place. But the far greater truth and the more apt word for this place is desert. It was true when I was growing up, and it’s just as true now. We lived in the desert more than, or at least as much as, we lived at the border. Nature was so often louder in its quietude than people giving orders in uniforms, or fences keeping us and the cows from wandering where we weren’t supposed to go. The border made Nogales a major international port of entry, giving us the foundation for produce and tourism, both of which moved through town, but the desert gave us actual place, a geography on which to stand and find a steady footing. For those who live there, the desert, too, has always been a place of scarcity, of sparseness. Making do with what you had was a regular way of life. It was constant invention.”

Read the entire essay here.

Francisco X. Alarcón Featured in Latest Poetry Centered Podcast

Posted on by Mari Herreras

March 16, 2021

In the season premiere of Poetry Centered, the University of Arizona Poetry Center’s podcast, Francisco Aragón shares poems alive with the vibrancy of a particular voice addressed to a particular audience.

Included in the podcast is Francisco X. Alarcón’s bittersweet homage to a poetic ancestor, “Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón.” The late Alarcón is co-editor of Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice with Odilia Galván Rodríguez, and author of Snake Poems: An Aztec Invocation, among others published by the University of Arizona Press.

The podcast also features poems from Thom Gunn, and Denise Levertov, mythic. Aragón concludes the episode with a direct address of his own that challenges Arizona’s SB 1070, “Poem with a Phrase of Isherwood.”

Poetry Centered features curated selections from Voca, the University of Arizona Poetry Center’s online audiovisual archive of more than 1,000 recordings of poets reading their work during visits to the Center between 1963 and today. In each episode, a guest poet introduces three poems from Voca, sharing their insights about the remarkable performances recorded in our archive. Each episode concludes with the guest poet reading a poem of their own.

To listen to this episode and past episodes, please go here.

Flachs Examines Cotton Cultivation in India in Anthro Magazine Sapiens

Posted on by Mari Herreras

March 15, 2021

Andrew Flachs, author of Cultivating Knowledge: Biotechnology, Sustainability, and the Human Cost of Cotton Capitalism in India, recently contributed a story for SAPIENS, an online anthropology magazine, edited by Chip Colwell.

Excerpt from the story by Flachs:

“Organic agriculture also offers an agrarian way of life for younger, educated generations in Telangana at a time when many young people have moved away to find work in larger cities, such as Hyderabad and Bangalore, leaving behind or even selling family land. Staff members recruited from farming communities by various organic projects in Telangana have found a way to give back to their agrarian roots while achieving a new form of rural professionalism.

It would be wrong to frame the success of these programs as either the triumph of eco-friendly clothing sales or as evidence of the inherent superiority of certified organic agriculture. Those perspectives miss the crucial efforts of NGOs and organic companies that make it easier to be a small farmer. They also hide the efforts of charismatic, opportunistic, and earnest farmers and rural professionals who take up the local cause.”

SAPIENS began in 2016 with a mission to bring anthropology to the public, and make a difference in how people see themselves and the people around them. An editorially independent magazine of the Wenner‑Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Published in partnership with the University of Chicago Press.

You can read the entire story, and check out SAPIENS here.

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