Short Fiction. Nash Candelaria, a native of New Mexico, is the author of an acclaimed series of historical novels about the Southwest. His 1982 novel, NOT BY THE SWORD, received an American Book Award in 1983. This latest book of seven short stories, also set primarily in the Southwest, explores border culture, social issues, relationships, and the experience of living in an unwilling hybrid culture such as that in the U.S., in prose which is as delightful as it is precise. Alfonso Peña was a wrinkle of a man, begins the title story. Not just the creases around his eyes, the corners of his mouth, or his neck. Not just his clothes. But everything about him. His life was an unneat series of furrows and rumples that were chaotic and irretrievably fixed. No iron was hot enough, no steam press powerful enough to smooth them out. Without smoothing out the fictional realities of the lives he creates, Candelaria takes his readers with him on a journey into the series of furrows and rumples that make up our unneat existence.

Author City: SANTA FE, NM USA

Nash Candelaria has been described as the historical novelist of the Hispanic people of New Mexico. His five novels, hailed as landmarks in Hispanic literature, include MEMORIES OF THE ALHAMBRA, a seminal novel in Chicano literature; NOT BY THE SWORD, an American Book Award winner; INHERITANCE OF STRANGERS; LEONOR PARK; and A DAUGHTER'S A DAUGHTER. His short stories have appeared in a number of literary magazines and anthologies as well as in two collections: THE DAY THE CISCO KID SHOT JOHN WAYNE and UNCIVIL RIGHTS AND OTHER STORIES. His most recent publication is the memoir SECOND COMMUNION. He and his wife live in Santa Fe, New Mexico.