Renato Rosaldo wins Before Columbus Book Award

This just in about another old friend. Renato Rosaldo and Daniel del Solar (see note below) were both college classmates of mine, so we go WAY back. This is great news about Renato, forwarded from the good folks at the bilingual literary journal, Terra Incognita.

Dear amigos/amigas,

Please join us in congratulating Renato Rosaldo for being selected as a winner of
the twenty-fifth annual Before Columbus Foundation American Book Awards for 2004 for his book of poetry Prayer to Spider Woman / Rezo a la mujer araña. Other recent winners have included Sherman Alexie, Miguel Algarin, Don DeLillo, Martín Espada, William Gass, Sandra M. Gilbert, Kimiko Hahn, Bob Holman, Li-Young Lee, Luis Alberto Urrea and Al Young.

If you happened to catch Renato during our spring reading series at Cornelia Street
Cafe, you'll remember his beautiful and powerful work from the book, as well as
other oringal poems and his exceptional translation of San Juan de la Cruz's "Dark
night of the soul."

And, of course... his amazing jacket!

If you weren't able to hear Renato that night, he will be reading again on Friday,
September 23 at Patrias, Paulina Pérez Bemporad's wonderful Latin American Folk Art
shop in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The event is part of Hispanic Heritage Month and will
probably start around 7. We'll give you all the info as the time draws near.

You can read Juan Felipe Herrera's review of Prayer to Spider Woman / Rezo a la
mujer araña.

If you would like to purchase a copy of the book - and we definitely recommend doing
so! - please let me know. I don't think it's available online yet. We may try to
offer it through the Terra Incognita web site, using Pay Pal. But for now, we'll
take orders for Renato and pass them along to him.

Congratulations again to Renato.

Un abrazo fuerte,

William y Alexandra