Carmen Boullosa – Texas – Excerpt in Words Without Borders!

In celebration of Words Without Borders‘ 10-Year Anniversary(!), read an excerpt from Carmen Boullosa’s forthcoming novel, Texas: The Great Theft (forthcoming in fall 2014 from Deep Vellum!):

King had a royal name, though when he’d arrived in Mexico he hadn’t a penny, didn’t own even a snake. But he was a master of chicanery. When some locals lent him low-grade land to use for seven years, it took him only a few months to emerge as the legitimate owner of immense tracts, on which it seemed to rain cattle from the clouds, as if they were a gift from god. But there was nothing remotely miraculous about the way King made his fortune. He was as good a trickster as any magician with a false-bottomed top hat. If King had been Catholic (as he claimed to be in the contract he signed with the Mexicans), the archdiocese would have been able to build a cathedral with the fortune he’d have to have given them as penance for his sins.

In 1848 King wasn’t the only one who went looking for a fortune, convinced that “Americans” had the right to take what belonged to the North Mexicans by whatever means necessary, fair or foul.

(from “Texas: The First Ten Years of Bruneville” by Carmen Boullosa, translated from Spanish by Samantha Schnee)

I’m so excited to publish this book, it is going to be a landmark event for readers in Texas and beyond.

Don’t forget to check out all the links to Boullosa’s interviews and writing I posted before when announcing her signing!