Tucson Festival of Books

The Borderlands


Explore the rich, multi-cultural tapestry of the Southwest borderlands through captivating narratives of resilience and influence, presented by distinguished historians and biographers.


Panelists
Victoria Blanco

Born and raised in El Paso and Juarez, Victoria Blanco received her MFA from the University of Minnesota. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Guernica, Literary Hub and Catapult. "Out of the Sierra" is her first book....

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Gary Nabhan

Gary Paul Nabhan is an internationally celebrated nature writer, food and farming activist, and proponent of conserving the links between biodiversity and cultural diversity. He holds the W.K. Kellogg Endowed Chair in Sustainable Food Systems at the University of Arizona Southwest Center....

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Richard Parker

Richard Parker is an award-winning journalist and author who writes about the American Southwest for The New York Times and other publications. His new book, "The Crossing," looks at the origin story of the Southwest and El Paso....


Books:
Against the American Grain
A Borderlands History of Resistance
Gary Nabhan
History / Biography
University of New Mexico Press
October 2024
ISBN 9780826366979
Hardcover, 232 pages
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Gary Paul Nabhan illuminates the outlines of a history too long in the shadows. Whether Indigenous, LatinnX, priests, nuns, Quakers, or cross-cultural chameleons, it is the resisters, performers, grassroots organizers, nomads, and spiritual performers from the desert margins who are constantly reshaping America. More/less

Out of the Sierra
A Story of Rarámuri Resistance
Victoria Blanco
History / Biography
Coffee House Press
June 2024
ISBN 9781566896535
Paperback, 328 pages
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Based on more than a decade of oral history and participatory field work, Blanco paints a vivid portrait of Raramuri displacement. More/less

The Crossing
El Paso, the Southwest, and America's Forgotten Origin Story
Richard Parker
History / Biography
HarperCollins Publishers
March 2025
ISBN 9780063161917
448 pages
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