ALOUD [at] Central Library
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 7:00 PM
DAGOBERTO GILB
In conversation with Marisela Norte
The Flowers
podcast
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From one of this country's most original voices comes a masterful new novel about a young Mexican-American who falls in love while sweeping the decks of an apartment building named The Flowers. In the midst of exploding racial violence, he must decide what he values and what he can do about it.

Dagoberto Gilb was born in the city of Los Angeles, his mother a Mexican who crossed the border illegally, and his father a Spanish-speaking Anglo raised in East Los Angeles.  He studied philosophy and religion at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and graduated with both bachelor's and master's degrees.  After that, he began his life as a construction worker, eventually joining the union in Los Angeles; a member of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. As a class-A journeyman carpenter, his employment for the next twelve years was on high-rise buildings, including MOCA.  His books include The Magic of Blood (1993), which won  the 1994 PEN/Hemingway Award, The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuña (1994), a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Woodcuts of Women (2001), and Gritos (2003). Gilb recently published, as its editor, Hecho en Tejas:  An Anthology of Texas Mexican Literature (2006).  He is now a tenured professor in the Creative Writing Program at Texas State University, in San Marcos, Texas.  

Marisela Norte is considered one of the most important literary voices to come out of East Los Angeles. She has contributed to many publications including Rolling Stone, Interview, Elle, Los Angeles Weekly, Buzz, WEST, the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, Chicana Art, BOMB, Tu Ciudad and the upcoming issue of Propagandist. She has performed her work throughout California and many cities in the United States, and most recently at the Tate Modern in London. Norte has also co-authored the play, Black Butterfly, Jaquar Girl, Pinanta Woman and Other Super Hero Girls Like Me, and performed it at 350 Middle and High Schools in Los Angeles the last few years. Marisela Norte has been honored at the Kennedy Center in DC and nominated for an Ovation award. Her work can also be found in a number of anthologies, among them Microphone Fiends, Bordered Sexualities: Bodies on the Verge of a Nation, The Geography of Home: California's Poetry of Place, Rara Avis, Loca Motion: The Travels of Latina and Chicana Popular Culture, and just published Chicana Art-The Politics of Spiritual and Aesthetic Altarities by Laura Perez.
Directions/Parking: Unless otherwise indicated, ALOUD programs take place at the Los Angeles Central Library's Mark Taper Auditorium, 630 W. Fifth Street, Los Angeles, CA 90071.