Lucha Corpi

Lucha Corpi is a Chicana poet and mystery writer. She was born on April 13, 1945, in Jaltipan, Veracruz, Mexico. In 1975, she earned a B.A. degree in comparative literature from the University of California, Berkeley. Corpi's most important contribution to Chicano literature, a series of four poems called "The Marina Poems", appeared in the anthology The Other Voice: Twentieth-Century Women's Poetry in Translation, which was published by W. W. Norton & Company, in 1976.

She tends to write her short stories in English and her poems in Spanish. Her family insisted she and her six sisters and two brothers all be educated. Her elder brother would not attend school without her, which explanation led to an agreement with the school allowing her to sit in the back of the classroom. They divorced in 1970 and she started taking classes at the University of California at Berkeley, where she earned her BA degree in comparative literature. From 1970 to 1972, she was the coordinator of Chicano Studies Library. Cactus Blood, Arte Publico, 1995 Where Fireflies Dance, Children's Book Press, 1997 Black Widow's Wardrobe, Arte Publico, 1999 Crimson Moon, Arte Publico, 2004 Death at Solstice, Arte Publico, 2009

Reception of works Corpi's books have received mixed reviews. Publishers Weekly called Palabras de mediodia/Noon Words "her dawn". Of Eulogy For A Brown Angel: A Mystery Novel, Kirkus Reviews wrote, "Corpi brings a Chicana feminist perspective to the mystery genre and does so with enough originality to overcome some stilted and murky writing" concluding, "Awkward and slow moving at times, but still worthwhile mystery-reading", while Publishers Weekly wrote: "A haze of dazzlingly evocative prose very nearly hides this first mystery's slack plotting. Corpi's ear for Latino rhythms and her feminist leanings produce some original and highly charged narrative moments. But plot still matters...Although careful readers might anticipate the solution and wish for a few more suspects, Corpi expands the genre with this work of small triumphs."

Kirkus Reviews was critical of Cactus Blood, calling it, "A well-nigh impenetrable mystery full of stilted dialogue, murky scene-setting, wild poetry, and furious evocations of the 1973 grape boycott and 1989 Oakland earthquake", while Publishers Weekly wrote: "Corpi writes convincingly about Gloria's attempts to interpret her visions and does a fine job depicting decent people handling dangerous situations. But many moments of harking-back and a rash of coincidences slow the narrative."

Awards National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship in 1979 First place in the Palabra Nueva literary competition for her short story "Los cristos del alma" in 1983 First place in the Chicano Literary Contest held at the University of California, Irvine, in 1984 Her first mystery novel, Eulogy for a Brown Angel, which won the Multicultural Publishers Exchange Best Book of Fiction award in 1992. PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Prize in fiction Named poet laureate at Indiana University Northwest

Publications

The Other Voice: Twentieth-Century Women's Poetry in Translation, 1976.