Books Fiction Bernardo and the Virgin Edition: Hardcover (320 pages) Publisher: Northwestern University Press (May 10, 2005) In 1980, with the Sandinistas newly in power, tailor and pig farmer Bernardo Martinez witnesses an extraordinary thing: an otherworldly glow about the statue of the Virgin Mary in the church where he works as sacristán. Soon the Holy Virgin appears. She tells Bernardo to forget his money problems and fear of ridicule and spread her message of peace and faith to his neighbors. Though a work of fiction, Bernardo and the Virgin is based on actual events in Bernardo Martinez's life. The visitation of the Virgin Mary at Cuapa, Nicaragua, remains one of the few such events accepted by the Roman Catholic Church in the last sixty years... More? Before Fiction Julia Alvarez: A Critical Companion (Critical Companions to Popular Contemporary Writers) Edition: Hardcover (184 pages) Publisher: Greenwood Press (August 30, 2001) Julia Alvarez made her mark on the American literary horizon with the 1991 publication of her debut novel How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, a story based on her own family's bicultural experiences. This Critical Companion introduces readers to the life and works of Dominican American writer Alvarez and examines the thematic and cultural concerns that run through her novels... More? Conversations With Rudolfo Anaya (Literary Conversations Series) Edition: Paperback (256 pages) Publisher: University Press of Mississippi (November 1, 1998) More? Tropical Town and Other Poems (Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage) Edition: Paperback (161 pages) Publisher: Arte Publico Press (March 1, 1999) Poetry. "The Nicaraguan-born poet Salomon de la Selva poses a unique and fascinating case in the recovery of U.S. Hispanic literature. The challenge of studying de la Selva's first published collection of poetry, TROPICAL TOWN AND OTHER POEMS, arises as soon as we attempt to trace its literary lineage... TROPICAL TOWN represents the first English-language collection of poetry by a Hispanic writer in the United Sates -- a fact unknown to most scholars and students of Hispanic-American literature... More?