Rudolfo Anaya

Rudolfo Anaya was born in Pastura and raised in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Like Antonio Márez, Anaya had a vaquero (cowboy) father and a mother from a farming family, and he was also greatly influenced by the beauty of the New Mexican flatlands. Anaya's family later moved to Albuquerque, where he attended high school and the University of New Mexico. He got two masters degrees there, and he married Patricia Lawless in 1966. Bless Me, Ultima is his first novel. Many publishers rejected it for its blend of languages and its Chicano subject matter, but once it was published the book became extremely popular through word-of-mouth. It is now considered part of the canon of contemporary Chicano literature and American literature as a whole. Anaya's best known other books are Heart of Aztlan, Tortuga, and Albuquerque. He still lives and writes in Albuquerque, New Mexico.