Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza

Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa (1942-2004) is probably the most influential Chicana cultural theorist, poet-philosopher, editor, and creative writer. A prolific author, she is best known for her book

Borderlands/La Frontera

(1987), which has been named as one of the 100 Best Books of the Century (Keating, “Introduction” 3). A number of scholars regard

Borderlands/La Frontera

as an autobiography, but Anzaldúa herself called her work an “autohistoria-teoría”, a term she created to describe the autobiographical writing of women of color that challenges western autobiographical notions which presuppose an autonomous, objective, detached (white, too often male) writing self. In her view, autohistoria-teoría is embodied writing that includes “life-story and self-reflection on this…

2994 words

Citation: Kirschner, Luz Angélica . "Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 October 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=32843, accessed 19 March 2024.]

32843 Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.