Saturday, December 10, 2011

Dagoberto Gilb's six favorite books

Dagoberto Gilb's books include The Flowers, Gritos, Woodcuts of Women, The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuña, The Magic of Blood, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the newly released story collection Before the End, After the Beginning. Gilb is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and has been a finalist for both the PEN/Faulkner and National Book Critics Circle Award.

One of his six favorite books, as told to The Week magazine:
With His Pistol in His Hand by Américo Paredes

Written with fine humor, Paredes's book explores the story behind a popular ballad about a Texas Mexican who in 1901 was wrongly accused of being a horse thief and stood up to the Texas Rangers who chased him. It's a fascinating account of the incident, and of the racism that Mexican-Americans lived through.
Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue