Alicia Gaspar de Alba Papers

Alicia Gaspar de Alba is a native of El Paso, Texas and attended Loretto Academy Elementary School, Eastwood High School, and the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). In 1985, she moved to Iowa City to begin her doctorate in American Studies but eventually took a break from academia. In 1990 she moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to finish her Ph.D. in American Studies at the University of New Mexico (UNM), and since 1992, she has been living in Los Angeles, California. In 1994, she secured a tenure-track position teaching Chicana/o Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

Dr. Gaspar de Alba has published twelve books—novels, collections of poetry and short fiction, academic books, and edited or co-edited anthologies. Publications include the historical novels, Sor Juana's Second Dream (University of New Mexico Press, 1999) and Calligraphy of the Witch (St. Martin's Press, 2007 and Arte Publico Press, 2012), the award-winning mystery on the U.S.-Mexico femicides, Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders (Arte Publico Press, 2005), a monograph on the CARA Exhibition, Chicano Art Inside/Outside the Master's House (University of Texas Press, 1998), and a book-length collection of her academic essays, [Un]Framing the "Bad Woman": Sor Juana, Malinche, Coyolxauhqui and Other Rebels With a Cause (University of Texas Press, 2014), winner of the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE) Book Award in 2015. Other awards include the Massachusetts Artists Foundation Poetry Award, Premio Aztlán, the Rockefeller Fellowship for Latino Study at the Smithsonian, the Latino Hall of Fame Award for Best Historical Novel, the Lambda Literary Foundation Award for Best Lesbian Mystery, and the Latino Book Award. Her work has been translated to Spanish, German, Italian, and French, and her novel on Sor Juana has been adapted into a play, an opera, and a film.

Dr. Gaspar de Alba continues to write and will donate additional material as projects are completed.