Principally because of his first novel, Bless Me, Ultima (1972), Rudolfo Anaya is considered a major contemporary Mexican-American writer. The book, one of the few Chicano literary best-sellers, appears on high school and college curricula, holds an important place in the landscape of Chicano literary criticism, and (with some of his other novels) has been translated into German and Polish. The book's merit and market success have allowed Anaya to enjoy popularity simultaneously with relative critical acclaim. Since 1972 he has published four more novels and coedited several anthologies.

Anaya was born to Martin and Rafaelita Mares Anaya on 30 October 1937, in Pastura, a village lying south of Santa Rosa in eastern New Mexico. He attended public schools in Santa Rosa and Albuquerque despite an extended hospitalization for a spinal injury he suffered as a youth. He earned a B.A. (1963) and M.A. (1968) in English from the University of New...