Daughters of Latin America An international anthology of writing by Latine women

Storyteller and filmmaker Guzmán has created a thrilling international collection of women's literature spanning five centuries and diverse genres. Proud to publish the first anthology using the gender inclusive term Latine, she focuses on rescuing historically overlooked artists, especially those of African and Indigenous descent, and including queer and nonbinary people. From venerated writers like Sandra Cisneros to contemporary young women making slam poetry and chapbooks, the poems and prose works are presented in a way that honors their original creation, whether in English or in translation from Spanish or such Indigenous languages as Zapotec, with each translator acknowledged. Organized thematically around 13 moons, including the Ancient, the Cosmic, the Sagacious, and the Shamanic, this gathering invites both casual enjoyment and careful study. The Ethereal Moon, for example, includes Puerto Rican journalist and labor leader Luisa Capetillo (1879--1927), well-known Argentine poet Alejandra Pizarnik, and African-J apanese-Mexican writer Jumko Ogata-Aguilar. Bubbling up from each woman's brief bio and contribution is a breadth and depth of connection through time and space transcending racial, national, and cultural borders. The result is a breathtaking achievement of scholarship and sisterhood that will be treasured in and enrich all collections.

A significant collection of Latine women voices across five centuries. Inspired to "disrupt erasure and myths," Guzmán, who comes from an Indigenous Caribbean clan, hopes these selections from 34 nations--translated from 21 languages, including 17 "native mother tongues of the Americas"--will establish "a new literary canon." The work is divided into 13 sections, representing the 13 moons of the year. Thirteen, notes Guzmán, "is considered a sacred and holy number, and another word for 'god' in the Maya tradition." In addition to Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners, poets laureate, a Nobel laureate, and international bestselling authors, Guzmán highlights many lesser-known names, such as the late Honduran water protector Berta Cáceres, of Lenca Indigenous descent, the winner of the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize. In an excerpt from her acceptance speech, she urges her listeners, "Let us wake up! Let us wake up, humankind! We're out of time. We must shake our conscience free of the rapacious capitalism, racism, and patriarchy that will only assure our self-destruction. Our Mother Earth, militarized, fenced in, poisoned, a place where basic rights are systematically violated, demands that we take action." Some of the more famous names include Jamaica Kincaid, Giaconda Belli, Edwidge Danticat, Laura Esquivel, Audre Lorde, Sandra Cisneros, Anaís Nin (daughter of Cuban parents), Ada Limón, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Guzmán also includes the voices of trans and nonbinary writers. This post-colonial, inclusive compendium will be an excellent literary source for libraries and schools. Guzmán succeeds in her presentation of "a luminous universe of texts that navigate across time and space, genre, styles, and traditions," and the book does indeed contain "the wisdom, memory, and DNA, or oral traditions more ancient than time itself." Other contributors include Cristina Rivera Garza, Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Julia Alvarez, Ruth Behar, and Irma Pineda. A fresh, indispensable look at the wide, multicultural world of Latine women writers. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.