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Retablos

Retablos

Stories From A Life Lived Along the Border

Octavio Solis (Author)

$15.95
  • Publisher: City Lights
  • Format: Book
  • Binding: pb
  • Pages: 168
  • Released: Oct 16, 2018
  • ISBN-13: 9780872867864

Details

In this uniquely framed memoir, playwright Octavio Solis channels his youth in El Paso, Texas. Like traditional retablos, the rituals of childhood and rites of passage are remembered as singular, dramatic events, self-contained episodes with life-changing reverberations.

Living in a home just a mile from the Rio Grande, Octavio is a skinny brown kid on the border, growing up among those who live there, and those passing through on their way North. From the first terrible self-awareness of racism to inspired afternoons playing air trumpet with Herb Alpert, from an innocent game of hide-and-seek to the discovery of a Mexican girl hiding in the cotton fields, Solis reflects on the moments of trauma and transformation that shaped him into a man.

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