Arte Público Press is a publishing house associated with the
University of Houston
The University of Houston (UH) is a public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the university in Texas with over 47,000 students. Its campus, which is primarily in s ...
(
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...
,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
). It is the largest US publisher of contemporary and recovered literature by US
Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to viceroyalties forme ...
authors, publishing approximately 30 titles per year.
Arte Público was founded in 1979 by its current director, Nicolás Kanellos, Ph.D. Dr. Kanellos also founded and edited the '' Revista Chicana-Riqueña'' from 1972 to 1999. In 1980, Arte Público became a part of the
University of Houston
The University of Houston (UH) is a public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the university in Texas with over 47,000 students. Its campus, which is primarily in s ...
, where it is housed today. Arte Público has now published over 600 books.
In 1990, Arte Público launched the "Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage" project in order to recover, index and publish lost Latino writings dating from the American colonial period to 1960. In 1994, they created Piñata Books, their children's and young adult literature imprint.
Arte Público has published Lamberto Alvarez,
Victor Villaseñor
Victor Villaseñor is an American writer, best known for the national bestselling book ''Rain of Gold''. Villaseñor's works are often taught in American schools. He went on to write ''Thirteen Senses: A Memoir'' (2001 in literature, 2001), a co ...
,
Nicholasa Mohr
Nicholasa Mohr (born November 1, 1938) is one of the best known Nuyorican writers, born in the United States to Puerto Rican parents. In 1973, she became the first Nuyorican woman in the 20th century to have her literary works published by the maj ...
,
Luis Valdez
Luis Miguel Valdez (born June 26, 1940) is an American playwright, screenwriter, film director and actor. Regarded as the father of Chicano film and theater, Valdez is best known for his play '' Zoot Suit'', his movie '' La Bamba'', and his cre ...
,
Miguel Piñero
Miguel Piñero (December 19, 1946 – June 16, 1988) was a playwright, actor and co-founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café. He was a leading member of the Nuyorican literary movement.
Early years
Piñero was born on December 19, 1946, in Gura ...
,
Sandra Cisneros
Sandra Cisneros (born December 20, 1954) is an American writer. She is best known for her first novel, ''The House on Mango Street'' (1983), and her subsequent short story collection, '' Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories'' (1991). Her work e ...
,
Julia Alvarez
Julia Alvarez (born March 27, 1950) is an American New Formalist poet, novelist, and essayist. She rose to prominence with the novels ''How the García Girls Lost Their Accents'' (1991), '' In the Time of the Butterflies'' (1994), and ''Yo!'' ...
,
Helena Maria Viramontes
Helena Maria Viramontes (born February 26, 1954) is an American fiction writer and professor of English. She is known for her two novels, '' Under the Feet of Jesus'' and '' Their Dogs Came With Them'', and is considered one of the most signi ...
,
Sergio Troncoso
Sergio Troncoso (born 1961) is an American author of short stories, essays and novels. He often writes about the United States-Mexico border, working-class immigrants, families and fatherhood, philosophy in literature, and crossing cultural, psyc ...
,
Miguel Algarín
Miguel Algarín Jr. (11 September 1941 – 30 November 2020) was a Puerto Rican poet, writer, co-founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café, and a Rutgers University professor of English.
Early years
Algarín was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, and ...
Gwendolyn Zepeda
Gwendolyn Zepeda (born December 27, 1971 in Houston, Texas) is an American author. Zepeda is Houston's first Poet Laureate, serving a two-year term from 2013 to 2015. She was succeeded by Leslie Contreras Schwartz.
History
Her father was Mexica ...
,
Daniel Olivas
Daniel Anthony Olivas (born April 8, 1959, in Los Angeles, California) is an American author and attorney.
Biography
Daniel Olivas was raised near downtown Los Angeles, the middle of five children and the grandson of Mexican immigrants. He at ...
Pat Mora
Pat Mora (born January 19, 1942 in El Paso, Texas) is an American poet and author of books for adults, teens and children. Her grandparents came to El Paso from northern Mexico. A graduate of the University of Texas at El Paso, she received Honor ...
, and
José Ángel Gutiérrez
José Angel Gutiérrez, is an attorney and professor at the University of Texas at Arlington in the United States. He was a founding member of the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) in San Antonio in 1967, and a founding member and past pr ...
.
Arte Público Press was honored with the 2018
Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award
The Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, established in 1981, is an annual literary award presented by the National Book Critics Circle in honor of its first president, Ivan Sandrof. The award "is given to a person or institution who has, over ...
given by the
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".Rockefeller Foundation funded the initial meeting and the first decade of operation, along with numerous other foundations including
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of New York City in the United States, simply known as Mellon Foundation, is a private foundation with five core areas of interest, and endowed with wealth accumulated by Andrew Mellon of the Mellon family of Pitts ...
Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...
. Over 18,000 pamphlets and books written by Hispanics have been located. 1,000 books have been digitized, and over 500,000 literary items have been digitized from 1,700 periodicals.
Notable publications
* ''The House on Mango Street'' by Sandra Cisneros
* ''Zoot Suit and Other Plays'' by Luis Valdez
* ''Rain of Gold'' by Victor Villaseñor
* ''Chants'' by Pat Mora
* ''y no se lo trago la tierra (And the Earth Did Not Devour Him)'' by
Tomás Rivera
Tomás Rivera (December 22, 1935 – May 16, 1984) was a Mexican American author, poet, and educator. He was born in Texas to migrant farm workers, and worked in the fields as a young boy. However, he achieved social mobility through educatio ...
See also
*
List of university presses
This article lists notable university presses, arranged by country. Associations of university presses are listed afterwards.
Entries on this list should be publishing houses associated with one or more academic institutions and have their own ...