Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza

Named one of the “Best Books of 1987” by Library Journal Selected by Utne Reader as part of its “Alternative Canon” in 1998 One of Hungry Mind Review's “Best 100 Books of the 20th Century” Rooted in Gloria Anzaldúa’s experience as a Chicana, a lesbian, an activist, and a writer, the essays and poems in this volume profoundly challenged, and continue to challenge, how we think about identity. Borderlands/La Frontera remaps our understanding of what a “border” is, presenting it not as a simple divide between here and there, us and them, but as a psychic, social, and cultural terrain that we inhabit, and that inhabits all of us. This 25th anniversary edition features a new introduction by scholars Norma Cantú (University of Texas at San Antonio) and Aída Hurtado (University of California at Santa Cruz) as well as a revised critical bibliography. The emotional and intellectual impact of the book is disorienting and powerful…all languages are spoken, and survival depends on understanding all modes of thought. In the borderlands new creatures come into being. Anzaldúa celebrates this "new mestiza" in bold, experimental writing. —The Village Voice Anzaldúa's pulsating weaving of innovative poetry with sparse informative prose brings us deep into the insider/outsider consciousness of the borderlands; that ancient and contemporary, crashing and blending world that divides and unites America. —Women’s Review of Books