Tag Archives: Books and literature

Focus turns to Latino authors amid ‘American Dirt’ debate

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Latino activists say they hope the controversy around the novel “American Dirt” brings more attention to recent and overlooked works by Latino writers

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —
When Oprah Winfrey endorsed the novel “American Dirt” for her book club last month, many Latinos took to social media to decry the selection for its stereotypes and caricatures.

The novel about a Mexican mother and her young son fleeing to the U.S. border had been praised widely before its Jan. 21 release. But anger built over “American Dirt” by Jeanine Cummins — a writer who primarily identifies as white — and Latinos shared reading lists and pointed to recent work that went overlooked, offering “alternative” options for those who wanted to read about the Latino experience in the United States.

Across the U.S., Latino writers say they are seeing a jump in sales of those works following social media campaigns to draw more attention to Latino literature as big New York publishers face criticism for ignoring the work or not promoting it enough.

Nicolas Kanellos, founder and publisher of Houston-based Arte Publico Press, the largest publisher of Hispanic literature in the U.S., said he noticed last month some of his books by immigrant writers selling out.

“I’m not on Twitter but my staff told me some of our books were appearing on these lists as suggestions,” Kanellos said. “They are gone now.”

Journalist and novelist Luis Alberto Urrea, who Cummings cited as an influence, reported seeing sales of his early 2019 novel “The House of Broken Angels” jump to his surprise. It was one of the books mentioned on social media.

“Thank you. #14 on the LA Times bestseller list. Again,” Urrea wrote on Facebook. “Big Angel keeps coming back.”

Wendy C. Ortiz’s memoir “Excavation” in California’s San Fernando Valley also sold out on Amazon.

Others suggested readers buy the novel “Dominicana” by New York-born Angie Cruz and El Paso-born Sergio Troncoso’s short story collection, “A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant Son” — works released last year.

PEN-award winner and Fresno, California-born writer Daniel Chacón’s “Kafka in a Skirt: Stories from the Wall” also was recommended as a work to understand life on the borderlands. The collection was sought out as comfort following the August 2019 killing of 22 people in a shooting that targeted Mexicans in El Paso, Texas.

In addition, Latino advocates told followers to look out for new work from memoirist and essayist Luis J. Rodriguez, who released on last month, “From Our Land to Our Land: Essays, Journeys and Imaginings From a Native Xicanx Writer.”

“I’ve seen interest in my new book. Yeah, people are asking about it,” said Matt Sedillo, a Los Angeles-based poet and author of “Mowing Leaves of Grass.” He’s also getting more offers to visit colleges to read his work.

Myriam Gurba, a Long Beach, California-based writer who has been a vocal critic of Cummins, said she saw “no silver lining” in the controversy of “American Dirt.” She said readers should have been picking up books by Latinos writers anyway.

Gurba and a group of other Latino writers called #DignidadLiteraria met with publisher Macmillan (Flatiron Books, which published “American Dirt,” is a division of Macmillan) this week to demand the publisher hire more Latino staff.

Domingo Garcia, national president of the Latino civil rights group the League of United Latin American Citizens, said he didn’t have a problem with non-Latinos writing about immigration. “But it’s important to have a conversation with publishers about who is getting published and the lack of Latinos in the industry,” he said.

In New Mexico, the state with the largest percentage of Hispanic residents, the conversation shifted this week from “American Dirt” to Levi Romero. The bilingual Spanish-English poet was named as the state’s inaugural poet laureate. He will document his travels around the state to promote poetry through a web journal and podcast.

Santiago Vaquera-Vásquez, an Albuquerque-based writer and author of “One Day I’ll Tell You the Things I’ve Seen,” said he’s happy Latino works are getting recognized but he hopes the interests doesn’t die down. “Let’s not be angry for two weeks and forget about it,” Vaquera-Vásquez said. “Let’s be angry for months.”

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Russell Contreras is a member of The Associated Press’ race and ethnicity team. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/russcontreras



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Larsen, who threw solely good World Collection recreation, dies at 90

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NEW YORK —
Don Larsen, the journeyman pitcher who reached the heights of baseball glory when he threw an ideal recreation in 1956 with the New York Yankees for the one no-hitter in World Collection historical past, died Wednesday evening. He was 90.

Larsen’s agent, Andrew Levy, stated the previous pitcher died of esophageal most cancers in hospice care in Hayden, Idaho. Levy stated Larsen’s son, Scott, confirmed the loss of life.

Larsen was the unlikeliest of characters to realize what so many Corridor of Famers couldn’t pull off within the Fall Basic. He was 81-91 lifetime, by no means gained greater than 11 video games in a season and completed an unpleasant 3-21 with Baltimore in 1954, the yr earlier than he was dealt to the Yankees as a part of an 18-player commerce.

Within the 1956 World Collection, gained in seven video games by the Yankees, he was knocked out within the second inning of Sport 2 by the Brooklyn Dodgers and didn’t suppose he would have one other alternative to pitch. However when he reached Yankee Stadium on the morning of Oct. 8, he discovered a baseball in his shoe, the sign from supervisor Casey Stengel that he would begin Sport 5.

“I need to admit I used to be shocked,” Larsen wrote in his autobiography. “I knew I needed to do higher than the final time, preserve the sport shut and someway give our workforce an opportunity to win. Casey was betting on me, and I used to be decided to not let him down this time.”

The Dodgers and Yankees cut up the primary 4 video games and Stengel preferred the deception of Larsen’s no-windup supply. The supervisor’s instincts proved traditionally right. The lanky right-hander struck out seven, wanted simply 97 pitches to tame the Dodgers and solely as soon as went to 3 balls on a batter — in opposition to Pee Wee Reese within the first inning.

In successful 2-0, the Yankees themselves solely managed 5 hits in opposition to the Dodgers’ Sal Maglie, however scored on Mickey Mantle’s house run and an RBI single by Hank Bauer.

Larsen, chosen MVP of the 1956 Collection, had two shut calls. Within the second inning, Jackie Robinson hit a tough grounder that was deflected by third baseman Andy Carey to shortstop Gil McDougald, who threw out Robinson. Within the fifth, Mantle ran down an extended drive to left-center subject by Gil Hodges. With two outs within the ninth, pinch-hitter Dale Mitchell took a 3rd strike, finishing the right recreation and sending catcher Yogi Berra dashing out from behind the plate to leap into Larsen’s arms.

“When Yogi Berra jumped on me and grabbed with the bear hug, my thoughts went utterly clean,” Larsen wrote in his autobiography. “I used to be beneath pleasant assault … I used to be swept into the dugout.”

Their celebration stays one in all baseball’s most joyous photographs.

“Don’s good recreation is a defining second for our franchise, encapsulating a storied period of Yankees success and rating among the many biggest single-game performances in Main League Baseball historical past,” the Yankees stated in a press release. “The unmitigated pleasure mirrored in his embrace with Yogi Berra after the sport’s last out will without end maintain a safe place in Yankees lore. It was the head of baseball success and a reminder of the unimaginable, unforgettable issues that may happen on a baseball subject.”

Born Aug. 7, 1929, in Michigan Metropolis, Indiana, Larsen moved together with his household to San Diego, the place he went to Level Loma Excessive College, the alma mater of one other Yankees good recreation pitcher, David Wells. Larsen performed basketball and baseball and was signed by the St. Louis Browns for a $500 bonus and $150 a month.

After two minor league seasons, Larsen harm his arm after which spent two years within the Military. He was promoted to the Browns in 1953 and moved with the workforce to Baltimore the next yr. He struggled via his 3-21 season however two of the wins have been in opposition to the Yankees, who insisted he be included within the commerce that additionally introduced pitching star Bob Turley to New York.

Larsen began 1955 with the Yankees’ farm workforce in Denver, the place he went 9-1 and developed the no-windup supply. Promoted to the majors halfway via the season, he completed 9-2 for New York. Larsen went 11-5 the subsequent season and loved the get together environment that got here with taking part in for the Yankees, typically working with Mantle, Billy Martin and Whitey Ford of their late-night rounds of town. On the evening earlier than his good recreation, he had been out in town, believing he was not in Stengel’s plans for the subsequent day.

Larsen pitched in three different World Collection. He gained Sport 2 of the 1957 sequence in opposition to Hank Aaron and the Milwaukee Braves, however misplaced the decisive Sport 7. He shut out the Braves 4-Zero on six hits in Sport Three of the 1958 Collection, when New York beat Milwaukee in seven video games, and was again within the Bronx with the San Francisco Giants for the 1962 Fall Basic.

Pitching in opposition to the Yankees on Oct. 8, the sixth anniversary of his good recreation, he gained in aid at Yankee Stadium. After the 1959 season, he was traded to Kansas Metropolis in a deal that introduced Roger Maris to New York. With the A’s, he went 1-10 in 1960, a reminder of his dreadful season with the Orioles. He was despatched again to the minors the place he turned a aid pitcher after which moved on to the Giants, Chicago White Sox, Houston, Baltimore and the Chicago Cubs.

Larsen retired in 1967 with an 81-91 document over 14 main league seasons. He later labored as a liquor salesman and paper firm govt. When David Cone tossed an ideal recreation for the Yankees through the 1999 season, Larsen was in attendance after throwing out the ceremonial first pitch.

No different pitcher has thrown an ideal recreation within the postseason, however in 2010 the Phillies’ Roy Halladay pitched a no-hitter in opposition to the Cincinnati Reds through the Nationwide League Division Collection.

“They’ll by no means break my document,” Larsen would say of his recreation. “The most effective they will do is tie it. October 8, 1956, was a mystical journey via fantasyland. Generally I nonetheless ponder whether it actually all occurred.”

Late on Wednesday evening, Cone tweeted “RIP my pal” with a photograph of himself, Wells and Larsen collectively on the sector at Yankee Stadium.

“We’re deeply saddened to be taught of the passing of Don Larsen, who remained a welcome and acquainted face at our annual Previous-Timers’ Day celebrations within the a long time following his taking part in profession,” the Yankees stated. “He might be missed.”

In a message posted Christmas Day on social media, Scott Larsen stated his father was recognized with esophageal most cancers quickly after coming back from his annual journey to St. Louis in August to attend the St. Louis Browns Historic Society gathering. The elder Larsen “instantly started a rigorous program of radiation remedy” that he had not too long ago accomplished, Scott Larsen stated.

Along with his son, Larsen is survived by his spouse of 62 years, Corrine, daughter-in-law Nancy, and grandsons Justin and Cody.

Funeral preparations have been pending.

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The Newest: Oxygen performs main half in lots of ailments

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The Newest on the Nobel Prize in Drugs or Physiology (all occasions native):

1:15 p.m.

A member of the Nobel Committee at Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet says this yr’s award was given for “a elementary primary science discovery about how the physique adapts to totally different ranges of oxygen.”

Nils-Goran Larsson informed The Related Press that though we’re surrounded by oxygen “we now have to adapt to totally different oxygen ranges — as an example if we begin dwelling at increased altitude we now have to adapt and get extra purple blood cells, extra blood vessels, and likewise in numerous illness processes the regulation of oxygen and the metabolism is essential.”

Larsson says “folks with renal failure typically get hormonal therapy for anemia. With this discovery system there are alternative routes of doing this and creating comparable therapies.”

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Drugs was earlier within the day given collectively to medics William G. Kaelin, Jr., Peter Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza for his or her analysis into how cells reply to ranges of oxygen.

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1:05 p.m.

The Johns Hopkins College Faculty of Drugs is celebrating one in all its high researchers, Dr. Gregg Semenza, who shares this yr’s Nobel Prize for drugs for his work on how genes reply to low ranges of oxygen.

Semenza’s dean, Paul B. Rothman, says his “groundbreaking primary analysis has been impressed largely by what he has seen within the clinic” at Hopkins. The college says that work has “far-reaching implications in understanding the impacts of low oxygen ranges in blood issues, blinding eye ailments, most cancers, diabetes, coronary artery illness, and different situations.”

The 63-year-old Semenza shares the award with William G. Kaelin Jr., professor of drugs at Harvard College and the Dana-Farber Most cancers Institute who did his specialist coaching in inner drugs and oncology at Johns Hopkins, and Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe, professor at Oxford College and on the Francis Crick Institute.

Johns Hopkins College President Ronald J. Daniels calls it a momentous day, and says they’re immensely happy with Semenza’s ardour for discovery, an instance of the college’s dedication to creating new information that helps make a greater and extra humane world.

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1 p.m.

Reached at his house within the Boston space, Kaelin stated he was half-asleep when his cellphone rang at 4:50 a.m.

“I used to be conscious as a scientist that in case you get a cellphone name at 5 a.m. with too many digits, it is generally excellent information, and my coronary heart began racing. It was all a bit surreal,” he stated.

Kaelin, who was born within the New York Metropolis borough of Queens and grew up within the metropolis’s suburbs, stated the prize committee had initially been unable to seek out his cellphone quantity so that they first reached his sister, “and that may develop into a part of the household lore.”

Kaelin stated he is not positive but how he’ll spend the prize cash however “clearly I will attempt to put it to some good trigger.”

Requested what sensible payoffs have been achieved from his work, Kaelin defined that “the molecular pathway that my fellow prize winners and I helped to outline converges on a protein known as HIF, and on account of this work there are actually alternatives to both enhance or lower HIF.”

He stated medicine are being developed to do this. Sure ailments like anemia could be handled by rising HIF, whereas inhibiting that protein may assist with different ailments together with sure cancers.

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12:50 p.m.

Dr. Andrew Murray of the College of Cambridge says the three winners of the Nobel prize in drugs “revealed the elegant mechanisms by which our cells sense oxygen ranges and reply to fluctuations.

In a press release on Monday, Murray stated that hypoxia — when the physique does not have sufficient oxygen — is a attribute of quite a few ailments together with coronary heart failure, power lung illness and plenty of cancers.

He stated the work of Dr. William G. Kaelin Jr, Dr. Gregg Semenza and Dr. Peter Ratcliffe has “paved the best way to better understanding of those frequent, life-threatening situations and new methods to deal with them.”

12:15 p.m.

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Drugs was given collectively to William G. Kaelin Jr, who was born in 1957 in New York Metropolis and is a professor of drugs at Harvard College; Peter Ratcliffe, 65, of the College of Oxford; and 63-year-old Gregg L. Semenza on the Johns Hopkins College Faculty of Drugs.

The trio was given the award collectively for his or her discoveries of “how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability,” the Nobel Committee introduced Monday.

Thomas Perlmann, the secretary of the Nobel Committee on the Sweden’s Karolinska Instititute, stated he was capable of name the three laureates Monday, including the final one he known as was Kaelin. He reached him through his sister who gave him two cellphone numbers — the primary one was a incorrect quantity however he reached Kaelin on the second.

“He was actually completely satisfied,” Perlmann informed a information convention.

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11:30 a.m.

The 2019 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Drugs has been awarded to scientists William G. Kaelin, Jr, Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza.

They obtained the award collectively for his or her discoveries of “how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability,” the Nobel Committee introduced Monday.

It’s the 110th prize within the class that has been awarded since 1901.

The Karolinska Institutet stated in a press release the trio ought to share equally the 9 million kronor ($918,000) money award.

The discoveries made by the three males “have elementary significance for physiology and have paved the best way for promising new methods to battle anemia, most cancers and plenty of different ailments.”

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8:30 a.m.

The winners of this yr’s Nobel Prizes are to be introduced over the following week, to incorporate two literature laureates and the coveted Nobel Peace Prize.

Occasions start Monday with the award for physiology or drugs. The physics prize is handed out Tuesday and the next day is the chemistry prize.

This yr’s double-header Literature Prizes will likely be awarded Thursday and the Peace Prize will likely be introduced on Friday.

The economics prize — formally generally known as the Financial institution of Sweden Prize in Financial Sciences in Reminiscence of Alfred Nobel — will likely be awarded on Oct. 14.

The 2018 literature prize was suspended after a scandal rocked the Swedish Academy. The physique plans to award it this yr, together with saying the 2019 laureate.

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Learn extra tales on the 2019 Nobel Prizes by The Related Press at https://www.apnews.com/NobelPrizes

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