The University of Wisconsin Press

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Memoir / Latin America

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Killer Crónicas Bilingual Memories Susana Chávez-Silverman Foreword by Paul Allatson Writing in Latinidad: Autobiographical Voices of U.S. Latinos/as “This is not a memoir written outside the box; it is a memoir written to obliterate it.” —Publishers Weekly A woman living and communicating in multiple lands, Susana Chávez-Silverman conveys her cultural and linguistic displacement in humorous, bittersweet, and even tangible ways in this truly bilingual literary work. These meditative and lyrical pieces combine poignant personal confession, detailed daily observation, and a memorializing drive that shifts across time and among geocultural spaces. The author’s inventive and flamboyant use of Spanglish, a hybrid English-Spanish idiom, and her adaptation of the confessional “crónica” make this memoir compelling and powerful. Killer Crónicas confirms that there is no Latina voice quite like that of Susana Chávez-Silverman. “Susana Chávez-Silverman isn’t a code-switcher but a switch-burner. Her Killer Crónicas is an astonishing example of linguistic mestizaje. It’s also a prophetic statement: north and south are no longer applicable coordinates to understand the Americas. They have merged into a single gravitational order where languages are in constant mutation.”—Ilan Stavans, author of Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language “A stirring memoir . . . practically a performance. Killer Crónicas is a testament to the maturing sense of global and pan-Latin citizenship being claimed by Chicanos and U.S.-born Latinos in the American West. Combine this with such innovation in language, and her book may one day be regarded as a refreshing turning point in Latino literature, maybe even the truly bilingual literary voice that the pioneering Chicana critic Gloria Anzaldúa called for. ” —Daniel Hernandez, Los Angeles Times Writing in Latinidad: Autobiographical Voices of U.S. Latinos/as Susana Chávez-Silverman, Paul Allatson, Silvia D. Spitta, Rafael Campo, Series Editors Susana Chávez-Silverman is professor of romance languages and literatures at Pomona College in California. She is coeditor of Tropicalizations: Trans-cultural Representations of Latinidad and of Reading and Writing the Ambiente: Queer Sexualities in Latino, Latin American, and Spanish Culture, published by the UW Press. She is the author of Scenes from la Cuenca de Los Angeles y otros Natural Disasters, published by the UW Press in April 2010. Audio files of Chávez-Silverman reading from Killer Crónicas are available at audio readings. Media & bookseller inquiries regarding review copies, events, and interviews can be directed to the publicity department at publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu or (608) 263-0734. (If you want to examine a book for possible course use, please see our Course Books page. If you want to examine a book for possible rights licensing, please see Rights & Permissions.) There is also a press kit with more information, and print and web-ready images to be used in publicity for this title.

First Paperback Edition December 2010 LC: 2004007801E 174 pp.   6 x 9 Paper $16.95 t ISBN 978-0-299-20224-8 ADD TO CART Review Cart   • Excerpts from Killer Crónicas appear in The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature

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