Born in 1952 in the border town of Nogales, Arizona, to a British mother, Agnes Fogg Ríos, and a Mexican father, Álvaro Alberto Ríos, Alberto Ríos grew up between two worlds. It is no surprise, then, that his poetry and stories negotiate the borders between fantasy and reality, between the seen and the unseen. In his essay "West Real," Ríos describes his childhood: "I grew up around my father's family, but I look like my mother—which means I got to see two worlds from the beginning, and could even physically experience the difference growing up where I did: I could put, every day of my life, one foot in Mexico and one foot in the United States, at the same time." A daydreamer in school, Ríos learned quickly about what kind of language was valued...