A collection of short stories in Spanish and English explores the ups and downs of life in the borderlands

El Santo Queso Cuentos/the Holy Cheese Stories (Spanish and English Edition)

Literature & Fiction

Sagel, Jim

United States

Univ of New Mexico Pr

ï¿½Pass with Care, the sign cautions, but you need no reminding as you pass a butte brooding over stegosaurus hills. You know that the next turn promises the unexpectedï¿½a Ponderosa laid open by lightning, a herd of cattle sleek as a Brahman vision, a lake tremulous with trout. This is a land where the sky intoxicates the eye, and history gossips in the willows lining the great river. Itï¿½s the lost roads that lead to desert gardens; you miss your turn and end up finding your way."In Unexpected Turn self-described ï¿½migrant writer" Jim Sagel takes us on a journey at once austere and astonishing, remote and familiar. This is a love letter to New Mexico in spare and understated prose poems. Sagel visits places bathed in light and steeped in cultural history, where blind curves and unexpected turns lead to self-discovery. In a land older than the country, he captures the rare intersections of light, history, and the heart.ï¿½Like Jim Sagel, I'm a writer with roots in the oral storytelling tradition. Thatï¿½s why Sagel's work caught my ear and heart. He has managed to brilliantly capture the voices of the bilingual Southwest with great accuracy, respect and love. . . . Sagel's work is genuine.ï¿½ï¿½Sandra Cisneros

Unexpected Turn

History & Criticism

University of New Mexico Press

This never before published last novel by Jim Sagel (1947–1998), whose unique style of writing about New Mexico Hispano culture and mastery of New Mexican Spanish was dubbed “Chicanesque,” re-enacts the traditional Christmas play, Los Pastores, as the backdrop for a parallel story set in the fictional New Mexican village of San Buenaventura where a young woman has just given birth to a baby boy. The infant is Jesús (Jesus in Los Pastores) and his biological mother is Marta (Mary). Sagel informs the reader in the first paragraph that the mother has only twenty-three days to live. Sagel explicitly invokes a guiding star that shines over Bethlehem and foreshadows the tragedy of this holy mother’s death. But the story is not really about that. Instead, it is about the residents of the town who form the cast of Los Pastores. Each chapter opens with a scene from the single December performance. In particular, we follow the romance of Marta Elena Mascareñas (born Chacón) and Francisco Mascareñas, as well as the travails of the Chacón and Mascareñas extended families and friends. This is a story written with the dark and biting humor termed carrilla, a style of verbal play that evokes tears of laughter and stings of recognition. Ultimately, Sagel spins a tale intended to make us laugh even as we cry―much as life does. San Buenaventura’s people suffer brutal blows that sometimes (or often) knock them senseless, struggling to regain their footing, and seeing stars. They do so even as they live under a guiding star.

Some Are Born under a Star/Unos nacen con estrella: A Northern New Mexico Novel

Biographies & Memoirs

Trujillo, Michael L.

Michael L., Trujillo

Community & Culture

Museum of New Mexico Press

Hablando de brujas y la gente de antes: Poemas del Río Chama (Spanish Edition)

Place of Herons

Tunomas Honey (English and Spanish Edition)

Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingue

These bilingual poems from four chapbooks of thelast decade are collected in a single volume, along with twenty-two new poems. Sagel's voice often follows, but never cancels out, the Spanish voices of the people among whom he lived and worked.
Theresa Salazar Troy comments, "Sagel captures the stubbornness and fragility of a people firmly rooted to a place and an old but changing culture."

On the Make Again/Otra Vez en la Movida: New and Collected Poems (Poetry/Chicano Studies) (English and Spanish Edition)

West End Press

Both hilarious and dead serious, these stories are told with a precise ear for the language of Northern New Mexico. As William de Buys comments, the narrator's voice keeps rolling on, always familial, wise to ambiguity and paradox, never condescending. The texts were written in Spanish and translated into English by the author.

Mas Que No Love It (English and Spanish Edition)

A delightful panorama of Southwestern culture is presented in this collection of satirical and penetrating essays exploring the language, turbulent history, and rich multicultural fabric of life in this unique region.

Dancing to Pay the Light Bill: Essays on New Mexico and the Southwest: Essays on New Mexico and the Southwest (Red Crane Literature Series)

History

Americas

Museum of NM Press/Red Crane Books

Tomás searches for maturity and knowledge of his dead father, with the aid of his great-aunt Tía Zulema's magical eyeglasses and deck of playing cards. Bilingual English/Spanish.

Where the Cinnamon Winds Blow: Donde Soplan Los Vientos De Canela (English and Spanish Edition)

Eleven-year-old Tomas visits his uncle and learns a lot about his New Mexican cultural heritage from this wise storyteller. The stories are presented in both Spanish and English.

Garden of Stories / Jardín de cuentos

Children's Books

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Books by Sagel, Jim