A keen delight in language characterizes the work of Alurista, considered by many the poet laureate of Chicano letters. Possessing a noteworthy agility in English, Spanish, Náhuatl, and Maya, Alurista is equally at ease with both standard usage and slang. In tune with the realities of the barrio--the Chicano neighborhood--and yet immersed in the broad cultural heritage of Náhuatl and Mayan cultures, Alurista is a remarkably versatile and powerful poet and one of the first to succeed in the creation of interlingual texts.

Born, as he told Juan Bruce-Novoa (1980), "in the lake of Texcoco in what is known today as Mexico City" on 8 August 1947, Alberto Baltazar Urista spent his early years in the Mexican states of Morelos and Guerrero. The oldest of six children of Baltazar and Ruth Heredia Urista, he was thirteen when his family immigrated to the United States and settled in...