In the title story, 'Sabrina and Corina,' a Denver family falls into a cycle of violence against women and only comes together through ritual.įajardo-Austine currently holds the 2022-2023 fellowship chair in creative writing at Texas State University. In 'Tomi,' a woman is released from prison and finds herself in a gentrified city that is a shadow of the one she remembers from her childhood. In 'Any Further West,' she follows a sex worker and her daughter as they leave their ancestral home in southern Colorado to encounter a strange and hostile land in California. In 'Sugar Babies,' for example, the author addresses issues such as the sense of ancestry and heritage that tend to surface during territorial disputes. The stories, starring two Latina women of Native American descent living in the western United States, serve as a meditation on friendship, mothers and daughters, and the deep-seated truths of our homelands. Her first collection of short stories, Sabrina & Corina, was a National Book Award finalist, among others. In the same interview with the Denver Post, Fajardo-Anstine explained that when she was eight years old, she suffered from depression and writing helped her sort out and analyze her thoughts. It's very important to me to preserve cultural stories.' 'That's why I'm a storyteller too, because I knew how important it was to keep them alive, but I would also run into other people around me who didn't have access to all their stories. 'My family doesn't let the stories go away,' she told the Denver Post.

At her house, she would always find family and friends sharing a plate of green chiles and stories of her ancestors. In the end, it is up to Luz to save her family stories from disappearing into oblivion.Written in Kali Fajardo-Anstines singular voice, the. She bears witness to the sinister forces that have devastated her people and their homelands for generations.

Luz's character is inspired by the author's great-aunt Lucy, with whom she had a close relationship as a teenager. Luz recollects her ancestors origins, how her family flourished and how they were threatened.

Woman of light by kali fajardo anstine