Cecile Pineda began her involvement with literature not as a writer of fiction but as the author of several performance pieces originated in collaboration with members of the Theatre of Man, a highly experimental, collaborative ensemble theater company she founded and directed from 1969 to 1981 in the San Francisco Bay area. She operated as an independent theater artist for many years before being recognized and incorporated into Chicano literary circles in 1985 with the publication of her debut novel, Face. Performance pieces, short stories, poems, satires, and essays are among her many literary credits.

There are no obvious ethnic overtures in Pineda's creative works, and few knew about her background until Juan Bruce-Novoa discovered her Mexican heritage shortly after the publication of Face in 1985. Chicano literature had been gaining a new impetus in trying to surpass the experimentations of the 1970s by promoting new clusters of writers and thereby expanding...