Ulibarrí, Sabine - Francesca Miller (essay date Winter 1983)
Francesca Miller (essay date Winter 1983)
[In the following excerpt, Miller explores Ulibarrí's style and themes in First Encounters, commending especially his portrayal of relationships between different cultural groups.]
Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico, in which the nine short stories of Primeros Encuentros/First Encounters are set, is duly marked on any map of the USA, but it is a place which no longer exists, in the way that none of the places and times of our youth exist. Through the skill of the artist we can recover vanished places and peoples; such is the gift of Sabine Ulibarrí that we can know, and know intimately, a community which most of us have never visited or even imagined. The people of Tierra Amarilla are ranchers, sheep-raisers, Spanish-speaking; settlers whose heritage in this northwestern corner of New Mexico stretches back 400 years. The time of the stories is the early 20th century, a time of change, of first...
[The entire page is 1817 words long]
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