The Importance of a Piece of Paper by Jimmy Santiago Baca

The Importance of a Piece of Paper by Jimmy Santiago Baca

In his first foray into short fiction, award-winning poet and memoirist Jimmy Santiago Baca explores the territory where old-world traditions meet new-world ambitions, and characters try to make something of themselves, while keeping their souls intact. In Matilda's Garden, an old farmer pines for his wife of fifty years who died in her sleep one night months before. He is lured to the garden in the middle of the night by what he thinks is her presence, only to meet a gruesome fate. In The Importance of a Piece of Paper, two siblings must face the brother who has betrayed them by selling his share of the family land, leaving an entire community vulnerable. In The Three Sons of Julia, a long-suffering mother whose one request is that all her sons come home for the fourth of July, watches her dream burst as two of her sons-one a successful businessman and the other a hard-drinking ex-con-nearly destroy her house, and each other. Merging a refreshing innocence with a profound understanding of the world's brutality, The Importance of a Piece of Paper is a daring and arresting work that is at once fearless, tender, and inspiring.

Jimmy Santiago Baca spent his youth on the outskirts of society as an abandoned child and a runaway. He resorted to a life of crime several times as an adult, eventually receiving a five-year sentence in a maximum-security prison. He emerges from jail a voracious reader and a brilliant, self-taught writer after years of horrible torture in administrative segregation and isolation. He miraculously acquires a strong love for poetry, which proves to be his saving grace. Baca is now a well-known author who has won numerous awards, including the Pushcart Prize, the American Book Award, the Hispanic Heritage Award, and the coveted International Prize for his memoir, A Place to Stand.

In 2006, he was honored with the Cornelius P. The Turner Award is a national honor that honors one GED graduate each year for extraordinary achievements to society in the areas of education, justice, health, public service, and social welfare. Baca has done hundreds of writing seminars in jails, community centers, libraries, and universities after dedicating his post-prison life to writing and teaching those who are overcoming adversity. He founded Cedar Tree, Inc., a nonprofit foundation dedicated to assisting people in improving their lives via education, in 2005.

Poetry Selected Poems/Poemas Selectos Rita and Julia Spring Poems Along the Rio Grande Winter Poems Along the Rio Grande C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans Healing Earthquakes Que Linda La Brisa/How Lovely the Wind Is Immigrants in Our Own Land Black Mesa Poems Martin and Meditations on the South Valley Short Tales and Essays Adolescents on the Edge / Stories f

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780802141811
ISBN 10	0802141811
Title	The Importance of a Piece of Paper
Author	Jimmy Santiago Baca
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	TBS The Book Service Ltd
Year published	2005-01-27
Number of pages	240
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.