About this Event
In our Expand-the-Canon book club hosted by bookseller Valerie Hsu, we read and discuss works that are considered classics today, but might be excluded from standard curricula or reading lists because of subject matter, personal identities of their authors, societal reactions at publication, etc. In other words, we read influential texts that you could have read in a high school English class but probably didn’t because of racism, sexism, patriarchy, homophobia, colonialism, eurocentrism, etc. etc. in how our educational systems operate.
If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “I’m embarrassed I’ve never read ____” or “Why didn't anyone tell me about ___?” or “I was too young to appreciate ___ and I’d like to re-read it as an adult,” we’re here to help you out. Fill in your reading gaps with these classics you might have missed, and come discuss with us on the first Tuesdays each month.
We’ll meet on Tuesday, September 1 to discuss Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya.
About Bless Me, Ultima:
“I pulled this baby into the light of life . . . Only I will know his destiny.”
Antonio Marez is six years old when the woman who helped usher him into the world comes to stay with his family in New Mexico. Venerated by some as a miracle-worker—and disparaged by others as a bruja—Ultima, a curandera, or healer, opens Tony’s eyes to the spiritual roots of his culture, and introduces him to a magical, if sometimes frightening, new world: a realm in which she operates as a shaman.
Suddenly, the ordinary challenges and triumphs of childhood become extraordinary. As Ultima shows Tony how to cure ailments, reverse curses, and restore peace to those who have lost it, he embarks on a singular quest, one in which he probes the family ties that bind and rend him, questions the Catholicism that shaped him, and explores the Spanish, Mexican, and Native American influences that informed not only his heritage, but his very sense of self. And at each life turn there is Ultima, who was there the day he was born . . . and will nurture the birth of his soul.
A rich and wondrous story that reveals universal truths about the human condition and celebrates the beauty of Chicano culture.
Bless Me, Ultima is available for purchase here!
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Greedy Reads Remington, 320 West 29th Street, Baltimore, United States
USD 0.00
