LUIS ALBERTO URREA - Queen of America

The remarkable heroine of The Hummingbird’s Daughter makes a welcome return in an epic novel of love, loss and miracles in America.

Queen of America is based on Luis Urrea's real great-aunt Teresita, who had healing powers and was acclaimed as a saint.  Urrea extensively researched historical accounts and family records for decades to get the true story. He recounts a spell-binding tale: After the bloody Tomochic rebellion, Teresita Urrea, beloved healer and “Saint of Cabora,” flees with her father to Arizona. But their plans are derailed when she once again is claimed as the spiritual leader of the Mexican Revolution. Besieged by pilgrims and pursued by assassins, Teresita embarks on a journey through turn-of-the-century industrial America-stopping in New York, San Francisco, and St. Louis.

Teresita meets immigrants and tycoons, European royalty and Cuban poets, all waking to the new American century. As she decides what her own role in this modern future will be, she must ask herself, can a saint fall in love?

Luis Alberto Urrea is the author of Across the Wire, winner of the Christopher Award, and By the Lake of Sleeping Children. He is the recipient of an American Book Award, a Western States Book Award, and a Colorado Book Award, and he has been inducted into the Latino Literary Hall of Fame. His poetry has been included in The Best American Poetry, and his most recent book, Six Kinds of Sky, won the 2003 ForeWord Magazine award for best book of the year. He and his family live outside Chicago.

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