Latina Lesbian Writers and Artists

Explore a little-known side of the lesbian artistic world! With this book, you'll explore the work of the most significant contemporary Latina lesbian writers, artists, and performers in the United States, Latin America, and Spain. This book presents and analyzes literature, art, and poetry by women who, despite markedly different backgrounds and experiences, are all strongly influenced by the concept of lesbian identity. Latina Lesbian Writers and Artists begins with an essential A-to-Z overview of modern Latina lesbian authors and performers. From Cuban writer Magaly Alabau to literary critic Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano, you'll learn who these women are, where they're from, and what they've chosen as the focus of their work. The rest of the book is structured to give you a look at the work Latina lesbians in the United States and then moves geographically outward, first to Latin America, then to Spain. - Tortilleras on the Prairie: Latina Lesbians Writing the Midwest provides a unique look at a much-neglected component of Latina lesbian writingthat of the Latinas living far from the East and West Coast hubs of both Latino and queer cultures, exploring Latina lesbian literary production in places like Kansas and Nebraska. - The Role of Carmelita Tropicana in the Performance Art of Alina Troyano, appraises the imaginative, hilarious, and insightful work of Cuban-American performance artist Alina Troyano (better known by her stage name, Carmelita Tropicana), examining the strategies she used (code switching, the breaking of heterosexist norms, the development of alter-egos, and more) to create a hybrid identity as an artist and performer. - Moving La Frontera Toward a Genuine Radical Democracy in Gloria Anzaldúa's Work shows us how Anzaldúa's pivotal work Borderlands has revolutionized academic perceptions of the border and of identity in Latin American/U.S. Latino literature. - You'll also find passionate poetry created by Latina lesbians. Como Sabes, Depresión is a fragment of a passionate bilingual poem written by an English-speaking poet enamored of the Spanish language, and To Sor Juana is a poem dedicated to the seventeenth century poet and nun who has become an icon among Latina lesbians. - Lesbianism and Caricature in Griselda Gambaro's Lo impenetrable shows how lesbian characters and themes in the works of this Argentine novelist are used to satirize and undermine the perverse social values of patriarchal dictatorship. - The (In)visible Lesbian: The Contradictory Representations of Female Homoeroticism in Contemporary Spain introduces us to some of Spain's lesbian authors and communicates the difficulties lesbian writers in that country and around the world have had in finding a receptive audience.

María Dolores Costa, PhD, is Professor of Spanish at California State University, Los Angeles, where she mostly teaches heritage learners of Spanish. She received her PhD from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and her BA and MA from Kent State University. Her area of specialization is nineteenth and twentieth century narrative. She has taught courses on women's writing, the literature of the Spanish Civil War, nature in Spanish literature, and spirituality in Spanish literature. She has published articles and delivered papers on numerous topics, including feminism and ecofeminism, pedagogy, Chicano and Hispanic films, Spanish gay and lesbian writers, and Spanish authors Federico Garcia Lorca, Rosalía de Castro, Ramón del Valle-Inclán, Julio Camba, Arturo Barea, and Benito Pérez-Galdós. She is currently working on a book about Spanish nature writing from Romanticism to the present. She has also published several book reviews, predominantly on lesbian themes. Beyond her academic pursuits, she is involved with the Quaker faith, and has published some pieces in Quaker publications.

- Introduction - Illustration by Jennifer Whiting - Latina Lesbian Writers and Performers: An Overview - Illustration by Jennifer Whiting - Tortilleras on the Prairie: Latina Lesbians Writing in the Midwest - The Role of Carmelita Tropicana in the Performance Art of Alina Troyano - Moving La Frontera Towards a Genuine Radical Democracy in Gloria Anzaldúa's Work - Illustration by Jennifer Whiting - Como Sabes, Depresión - To Sor Juana - Illustration by Jennifer Whiting - Lesbianism and Caricature in Griselda Gambaro's Lo impenetrable - Illustration by Jennifer Whiting - The (In)visible Lesbian: The Contradictory Representations of Female Homoeroticism in Contemporary Spain - Illustration by Jennifer Whiting - Index - Reference Notes Included