Join us for a reading from author Valentin Sandoval’s new poetic novel, SOUTH SUN RISES. Valentin will be joined by writer Daniel Apodaca.
Valentin Sandoval hails from the desert metroplex of El Paso, Texas. His novel, SOUTH SUN RISES, is a poetic narrative of a pursuit of the American dream on one of the world’s most compelling and dangerous international borders, El Paso/Juarez. Leaving behind her life in Juarez, Sandoval’s mother finds herself isolated and alone in the gritty projects of El Paso. Most days, the hardship of working hard hours while being both the mother and father to four children, she’d find herself fending off the dangers of the projects, with its predators, drug dealers, and junkies. She was resilient enough to search for the best setting for her to raise her children. Through tremendous persistence and effort, she managed to become a US citizen in the midst of raising her children on her own. The book adopts poetics as a form of familial understanding, a surreal kind of folklore in order for the writer to understand the life cycle in which he finds himself.
Jacob Daniel Apodaca is an environmentalist who has been monitoring the quality of the water in the Colorado River for the past 25 years for the City of Austin and the Lower Colorado River Authority. His avocations are writing, playing guitar, applying stucco, creating mosaics, and making masks. He was born in El Paso, Texas in 1964. He earned a bachelor’s degree in English and anthropology from Baylor University in 1986 and a master’s degree in anthropology and Latin American Studies from The University of Texas at Austin in 1991. Apodaca hosted a monthly poetry open mike for Raúl Salinas at Resistencia Bookstore on East 6th Street in Austin, Texas from 1989 to 1992. He is currently working on a novel titled Fire: La Lumbre Adentro, and he continues to write poetry.