Short Fiction by Hispanic Writers of the United States

Editor Kanellos, who teaches creative writing at the University of Houston, has mined literary gold from the rich vein of contemporary American Hispanic fiction. Max Martinez's tale of sexual fantasy is more about oppression and its effects on Mexican-Americans in Texas than it is about sex. Ed Vega explores the roots of machismo in a Puerto Rican writer in New York City who needs to avenge a perceived assault on his manhood. Margarita Mondrus Engle and Roberto Fernandez poignantly and metaphorically show how Cuban-Americans react to the artificial barriers between their two homelands. In another piece, Fernandez describes a healing miracle in the midst of the barrio, mixing Hispanic mysticism with American materialism. Kanellos has selected carefully: none of the stories are polemical. Lessons are inferred and the sense of apartness is implied, not explicit. At the heart of every tale are real people trying to survive in a society stacked against them, using humor, folklore, magic, hard work, sex, deference, arrogance and any other weapon they can summon to the battle. These are entertaining yet powerful works of short fiction. (May)