Bless Me, Ultima

A collectible hardcover 50th-anniversary edition of the bestselling Chicano novel of all time, featuring a new foreword by Erika L. Sánchez, the New York Times bestselling author of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

A Penguin Vitae Edition

Although only six years old, Antonio Marez is perceptive beyond his years. He was brought into the world with the help of Ultima, a curandera, or folk healer, in touch with nature and the spirit world. Revered by some as a wisewoman but rebuked by others as a witch, Ultima has now come back to stay with Tony's family in New Mexico. As Tony seeks out his destiny--torn between his mother's farming forebears and his father's wandering vaquero roots, between Spanish Catholicism and the gods of his indigenous ancestors--Ultima's loving tutelage will help him navigate questions of life and death, good and evil, and reveal to him the vastness of the heritage that shapes him, in this pioneering work of literature.

Penguin Vitae--loosely translated as "Penguin of one's life"--is a deluxe hardcover series from Penguin Classics celebrating a dynamic and diverse landscape of classic fiction and nonfiction from seventy-five years of classics publishing. Penguin Vitae provides readers with beautifully designed classics that have shaped the course of their lives, and welcomes new readers to discover these literary gifts of personal inspiration, intellectual engagement, and creative originality.

Author: Rudolfo Anaya
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 03/15/2022
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.30w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9780143137221

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 5.4
Point Value: 14
Interest Level: Upper Grade
Quiz #/Name: 64624 / Bless Me, Ultima

About the Author
Rudolfo Anaya (1937-2020) was a New Mexican novelist and essayist and one of the founding voices in modern Chicanx literature. In 2016 he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama. A former professor at the University of New Mexico, he won numerous literary awards, including the Premio Quinto Sol National Chicano literary award, the 2007 Notable New Mexican Award, and the PEN Center USA West Award for Fiction. Bless Me, Ultima was named a Great American Read by PBS, and it has been adapted into a feature film, an opera, and several stage plays. Anaya was a lifelong champion of Chicanx voices and devoted himself to supporting aspiring writers.

Erika L. Sánchez (foreword) is the New York Times bestselling author of the National Book Award finalist I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, the poetry collection Lessons on Expulsion, and the forthcoming memoir-in-essays Crying in the Bathroom. She lives in Chicago, where she is the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz chair of Latin American and Latino studies and a writer-in-residence at DePaul University.