By the Lake of Sleeping Children
by Luis Urrea
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Description
"Luis Alberto Urrea's first book, Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border, was a haunting and unprecedented look at what life is like for those living on the Mexican side of the border, eking out only the barest of lives not far from the white sands and coral reefs of Southern California. His poignant, widely acclaimed account of the struggle of these people to survive amid the abject poverty, unsanitary living conditions, and legal and political chaos that reign in the show more Mexican borderlands vividly illustrated why so many are forced to make the treacherous and illegal journey "across the wire" into the United States." "Written with the same unflagging curiosity, compassion, mordant wit, and novelistic sense of detail that made Across the Wire "a work of investigative reporting that is also a bittersweet song of human anguish" (Los Angeles Times), By the Lake of Sleeping Children explores the post-NAFTA and Proposition 187 border purgatory of garbage pickers and dump dwellers, gawking tourists and relief workers, fearsome coyotes and their desperate clientele. In sixteen indelible portraits, Urrea illuminates the horrors and the simple joys of people trapped between the two worlds of Mexico and the United States - and ignored by both. The result is a startling and memorable work of first-person reportage."--BOOK JACKET. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
The book told us a fact that not heard often during the describe of the people live in the border, and their lives is not just poverty but also very hard.
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Author Information
25+ Works 6,894 Members
Luis Alberto Urrea is the author of many books of nonfiction and poetry. He has won the Christopher Award, the Western States Book Award, and most recently, the American Book Award.
Work Relationships
Inspired
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1996
- Important places
- Arizona, USA; California, USA; Mexico; Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico; Baja California, Mexico; San Diego, California, USA (show all 7); Chula Vista, California, USA
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 306.09722 — Society, Government, and Culture Social sciences, sociology & anthropology Social Behavior - Dating, Marriage, Divorce Social history North America Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean
- LCC
- HN120 .T52 .U773 — Social sciences Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform Social history and conditions. Social problems. By region or country
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 141
- Popularity
- 229,697
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.72)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 2
- ASINs
- 2
