Alicia gaspar de alba
Winner of the LAMBDA award, Alicia Gaspar de Alba is a ferocious writer whose work engages sensitive issues in the border between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. Born and raised between both cities (she happily remembers her house on Barcelona Street), she is the author of numerous works of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction like Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders, La Llorona on the Longfellow Bridge.
She was a founding faculty member of the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She currently teaches Chicanx Studies, English, and Gender Studies and is the Chair of the LGBTW Studies Program at the same university. Her work has been translated into multiple languages, such as Spanish, German, Italian, and French.
Gaspar de Alba has dedicated her life to improving academia through careful analysis of marginalized issues, particularly the LGBTQ+ community. Nonetheless, she is quite known for her research work regarding the femicides in Juárez, with which she wrote a novel that portrays the horrifying crimes committed in the border. The representation of such issues, mixed with her writing about queer women, makes Gaspar de Alba an admirable writer whose work will continue to influence further academic and literary studies.
Works
Narrative:
Sor Juana’s Second Dream, University of New Mexico Press, 1999
Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders, Arte Público Press, 2005
Calligraphy of the Witch, Arte Público Press, 2012
The Curse of the Gypsy, Arte Público Press, 2018
Essay:
Chicano Art Inside/Outside the Master’s House: Cultural Politics and the CARA Exhibition, University of Texas Press, 1998
Velvet Barrios, Popular Culture & Chicana/o Sexualities, Palgrave, 2003.
Making a Killing: Femicide, Free Trade, and La Frontera, University of Texas Press, 2010
[Un]framing the “Bad Woman”, University of Texas Press, 2014
Poetry:
Beggar on the Cordoba Bridge, Bilingual Press, 1989
La Llorona on the Longfellow Bridge, Arte Público Press, 2003