A01=Manuel Munoz
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Author_Manuel Munoz
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Catholic
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Christian
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coming of age
community
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conservatism
Cornell University
Costa Rica
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English
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Harvard University
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Los Angeles
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Spanish
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Product details
- ISBN 9780810148956
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 15 Jun 2025
- Publisher: Northwestern University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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MuÑoz’s breakthrough collection, reissued with a new foreword by author Helena MarÍa Viramontes
Manuel MuÑoz’s first collection of stories goes beyond the traditional family myths of Mexican American literature and the image of California’s Central Valley as a lush world of rural tranquility, instead exploring the constant struggle of characters against their physical and personal surroundings. A teenage boy learns the consequences of succumbing to the lure of a town outsider; a young farm worker attempts to hide his supervision of a group of children from the town police; a father must expose his own secrets after his son is found murdered in a highway motel. Experiencing conflicts of family and sexuality and the pain of loss and memory, the characters in Zigzagger seek to reconcile themselves with the rural towns of their upbringing—places that, by nature, are bordered by loneliness.
Manuel MuÑoz’s first collection of stories goes beyond the traditional family myths of Mexican American literature and the image of California’s Central Valley as a lush world of rural tranquility, instead exploring the constant struggle of characters against their physical and personal surroundings. A teenage boy learns the consequences of succumbing to the lure of a town outsider; a young farm worker attempts to hide his supervision of a group of children from the town police; a father must expose his own secrets after his son is found murdered in a highway motel. Experiencing conflicts of family and sexuality and the pain of loss and memory, the characters in Zigzagger seek to reconcile themselves with the rural towns of their upbringing—places that, by nature, are bordered by loneliness.
Manuel Munoz is celebrated as one of the foremost literary chroniclers of California’s Central Valley. Northwestern University Press published his debut story collection, Zigzagger, in 2003, and are delighted to announce that reprints of his second story collection and his novel will be joining the acclaimed TriQuarterly imprint. Each reissue includes a foreword that celebrates the enduring, empathic power of MuÑoz’s fiction.
MuÑoz has been recognized with a Whiting Award, three O. Henry Awards, the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, two selections in Best American Short Stories and, most recently, a 2023 MacArthur Fellowship. His frequently anthologized work has appeared in The New York Times, Virginia Quarterly Review, American Short Fiction, Electric Literature, ZYZZYVA, andFreeman’s. A native of Dinuba, California, he lives in Tucson.
MuÑoz has been recognized with a Whiting Award, three O. Henry Awards, the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, two selections in Best American Short Stories and, most recently, a 2023 MacArthur Fellowship. His frequently anthologized work has appeared in The New York Times, Virginia Quarterly Review, American Short Fiction, Electric Literature, ZYZZYVA, andFreeman’s. A native of Dinuba, California, he lives in Tucson.
