Susana Chavez-Silverman reading from Scenes from la Cuenca de Los Angeles

Click on the audio files below to hear Susana Chávez-Silverman read from her book Scenes from la Cuenca de Los Angeles. Lázaro Lima hailed Scenes from la Cuenca de Los Angeles as “a love story about how language can bring us closer to each other.”

Her inventive and flamboyant use of Spanglish, a hybrid English-Spanish idiom, and her adaptation of the confessional crónica, make for a reading (and listening) experience at once intimate and powerful.

Susana Chávez-Silverman is professor of romance languages and literatures at Pomona College in California. She is coeditor of Tropicalizations: Transcultural Representations of Latinidad and Reading and Writing the Ambiente: Queer Sexualities in Latino, Latin American, and Spanish Culture. Her crónicas have been chosen for inclusion in the inaugural edition of The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature.

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1. Diary Inside / Color Local Crónica (From Scenes from la Cuenca de Los Angeles y otros Natural Disasters)

2. In My Country Crónica (From Scenes from la Cuenca de Los Angeles y otros Natural Disasters)

3. Mini Geography Lesson Crónica (From Scenes from la Cuenca de Los Angeles y otros Natural Disasters)

4. Todavía Wild (at Heart) Crónica (From Scenes from la Cuenca de Los Angeles y otros Natural Disasters)

5. I Want the Wrapper Crónica (From Scenes from la Cuenca de Los Angeles y otros Natural Disasters)

6. Hawk Call Crónica (From Scenes from la Cuenca de Los Angeles y otros Natural Disasters)

7. San Francisco Days Crónica (From Scenes from la Cuenca de Los Angeles y otros Natural Disasters)