Product Description

"[This] collection announces a new voice in 'American' literary and autobiographical production."—Paul Allatson, from the foreword

A woman living and communicating in multiple lands, Susana Chávez-Silverman conveys her cultural and linguistic displacement in a humorous, bittersweet, and even tangible way in this truly bilingual literary work. These meditative and lyrical pieces that combine poignant personal confession, detailed daily observation, and a memorializing drive that shifts across time and among geocultural spaces. The author's inventive and flamboyant use of Spanglish, a hybrid English-Spanish idiom, and her adaptation of the confessional "crónica" make this memoir compelling and powerful. Killer Crónicas confirms that there is no Latina voice quite like that of Susana Chávez-Silverman.

Killer Crónicas includes a chapter that was awarded first prize in El Andar magazine's Chicano Literary Excellence Contest in the category of personal memoir.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #563139 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 174 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Readers new to California-born Chávez-Silverman's unapologetic and bold back-and-forth between English and Spanish may at first be unable to classify what they are reading. It's quick, charming and utterly confusing to those who don't speak some Spanish. But the author aims to wake readers up, make them think and develop a truly 21st-century notion of multiculturalism. Early on in this bittersweet, often sarcastic and meditative memoir, Chávez-Silverman tells readers, "Para explicar estos mis flights (of fancy), tendría que empezar por decir que soy, it is—my language—cual homing pigeon on acid." As Chávez-Silverman, who teaches Romance languages and literatures at Pomona College, takes readers across borders and through time, she throws together a bevy of words diverse and complex enough to represent her vast variety of life experiences, from facing the challenges of being a Latina woman to dealing with loneliness, going out dancing and exploring new cultures. This is a memoir of place, as Chávez-Silverman recounts feeling isolated and alone in Johannesburg, at home in Los Angeles and as if she is searching in Buenos Aires. In his foreword, Latino culture expert Paul Allatson rightly declares, "[T]he kinds of code-switching and linguistic inventions that characterize [this book] represent a new 'American' literary and linguistic form." This is not a memoir written outside the box; it is a memoir written to obliterate it.
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Review
"...a refreshing turning point in Latino literature, maybe even the truly bilingual literary voice that Gloria Anzaldúa called for." -- Los Angeles Times, 2005

Review
"Susana Chavez-Silverman isn't a code-switcher but a switch-burner. Her Killer Crónicas is an astonishing example of linguistic mestizaje. It's also a prophetic statement: north and south are no longer applicable coordinates to understand the Americas. They have merged into a single, gravitational order where languages are in constant mutation."—Ilan Stavans

"These chronicles are truly hemispheric, postmodern memories written in a ludic, singular Spanglish that encapsulates the transnational, nomad vivencias of a Jewish Chicana from Califas, a citizen of the Hispanic world. Original, powerful and profound."—Frances Aparicio, University of Illinois at Chicago

"Susana Chávez-Silverman's Killer Crónicas: Bilingual Memories is a masterfully written memoir in the form of "chronicles" exploring issues of memory, family relationships, and language. Her philosophical excursions on writing, intertextuality, and life in general are brilliantly and humorously rendered in a bilingual format of  code-switching that evidences a superb knowledge of English and Spanish. This linguistic dexterity enables the crónicas to flow effortlessly from one language to another and easily captivates the reader as he/she  travels with the author in a most enjoyable and fascinating journey from  California to South Africa, Argentina, Spain, and Chile."— María Herrera-Sobek, associate vice chancellor and Luis Leal Endowed Chair, University of California, Santa Barbara