LEADER 04645nam 2200757Ia 450 001 9910450459103321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a9786612358050 010 $a1-282-35805-7 010 $a1-59734-569-5 010 $a0-520-93854-2 024 7 $a10.1525/9780520938540 035 $a(CKB)1000000000024235 035 $a(EBL)223209 035 $a(OCoLC)614517897 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000134669 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11148741 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000134669 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10057050 035 $a(PQKB)11351923 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC223209 035 $a(OCoLC)57207131 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse30396 035 $a(DE-B1597)519833 035 $a(OCoLC)1110720404 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780520938540 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL223209 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10068550 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL235805 035 $a(EXLCZ)991000000000024235 100 $a20040517d2005 ub 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aur|||||||nn|n 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aDancing with ghosts$b[electronic resource] $ea critical biography of Arturo Islas /$fFrederick Luis Aldama 210 $aBerkeley $cUniversity of California Press$dc2005 215 $a1 online resource (222 p.) 300 $aDescription based upon print version of record. 311 $a0-520-23188-0 311 $a0-520-24392-7 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index. 327 $tFront matter --$tContents --$tAcknowledgments --$tIntroduction --$t1. "Sonny" --$t2. Bio-Graphé --$t3. Sexuality --$t4. Death and Rebirth --$t5. Being Chicano --$tCoda "A Dancing with Ghosts" --$tChronology of Major Events --$tNotes --$tBibliography --$tIndex 330 $aThis first critical biography of Arturo Islas (1938­1991) brings to life the complex and overlapping worlds inhabited by the gay Chicano poet, novelist, scholar, and professor. Gracefully written and deeply researched, Dancing with Ghosts considers both the larger questions of Islas's life-his sexuality, racial identification, and political personality-and the events of his everyday existence, from his childhood in the borderlands of El Paso to his adulthood in San Francisco and at Stanford University. Frederick Aldama portrays the many facets of Islas's engaging and often contradictory personality. He also explores Islas's coming into the craft of poetry and fiction-his extraordinary struggle to publish his novels, The Rain God, La Mollie and the King of Tears, and Migrant Souls-as well as his pivotal role in paving the way for a new generation of Chicano/a scholars and writers. Through a skillful interweaving of life history, criticism, and literary theory, Aldama paints an unusually rich and wide-ranging portrait of both the man and the eventful times in which he lived. He describes Islas's struggle with polio as a child, his near-death experience and ileostomy as a thirty-year-old beginning to explore his queer sexuality in San Francisco in the 1970's, and his fatal struggle with AIDS in the late 1980's. Drawing from hundreds of unpublished letters, lecture notes, drafts of essays, novels, and poetry archived at Stanford University, Aldama also deals frankly with the controversies that swirled around Islas's impassioned love life, his drug addictions, and his scholarly and professional career as one of the first Chicano/a professors in the United States. He discusses the importance of Islas's pioneering role in bridging Anglo, Latin American, Chicano/a, and European storytelling styles and voices. Dancing with Ghosts succeeds brilliantly both as an account of a fascinating life that embraced many different worlds and as a chronicle of the grand historical shifts that transformed the late-twentieth-century American cultural landscape. 606 $aAuthors, American$y20th century$vBiography 606 $aEnglish teachers$zUnited States$vBiography 606 $aMexican Americans$xIntellectual life 606 $aMexican American authors$vBiography 606 $aMexican Americans in literature 608 $aElectronic books. 615 0$aAuthors, American 615 0$aEnglish teachers 615 0$aMexican Americans$xIntellectual life. 615 0$aMexican American authors 615 0$aMexican Americans in literature. 676 $a818/.5409 676 $aB 700 $aAldama$b Frederick Luis$f1969-$0855054 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910450459103321 996 $aDancing with ghosts$92477462 997 $aUNINA