Guest speaker to discuss work of feminist Chicana novelist

WSU departments of English, Comparative Ethnic Studies, and Foreign Languages and Cultures will sponsor a presentation this week by David Foster, Regents Professor of Spanish and Women’s Studies at Arizona State University.

He will discuss the work of feminist Chicana author Stella Pope Duarte in a presentation titled “Exiting the Barrio” beginning at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 9, in Thompson Hall, Room 201.

“Foster is a world-renowned authority on contemporary Latin American and Chicano literature,” said Eloy R. González, chair of foreign languages and cultures.

Stella Pope Duarte’s recent novel has received considerable attention as a feminist Chicana text because it demonstrates the relationship Chicanos have between the barrio and the larger society of the United States as a whole, Foster said.

“It is also an important Vietnam novel from within Chicano culture, and it is set in what is one of the major growing Hispanic/Chicano communities in the U.S.–Phoenix, Arizona,” he said.

Stella Pope Duarte is the first Phoenix-born Chicana novelist, Foster said. Her work “Let Their Spirits Dance” is one of the first Chicana novels to be published by a mainline publisher. HarperCollins published both the English version of the novel and its Spanish translation, “Que Bailen Sus Espíritus,” in 2002.

“‘Spirits’ is basically a Vietnam novel and follows the efforts of a family to get to the Wall to see the name of one of their fallen sons,” Foster said.

“But it is also a road novel, as the first-person narrator recounts how they are, in caravan fashion, able to leave the barrio to find their way across country and to the Memorial. In the process they discover America, as well as themselves and each other,” he said.