Award-winning author Reyna Grande will be book club’s Zoom guest

Mesilla Valley Readers of Southern New Mexico (MVRSNM) will host a Zoom presentation with author Reyna Grande, 4-5 p.m. Thursday, May 12, the group said in a news release. 

Grande will speak and take questions about her novel “A Ballad of Love and Glory,” which was published earlier this year, and “Somewhere We Are Human: Authentic Voices on Migration, Survival and New Beginnings,” which will be published in June.

“A Ballad of Love and Glory” is the “sweeping historical saga following a Mexican army nurse and an Irish soldier who must fight, at first for their survival and then for their love, amidst the atrocity of the Mexican-American War,” according to http://reynagrande.com.

“Somewhere We Are Human,” with an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen,

iIs “a unique collection of groundbreaking essays, poems and artwork by 41 migrants, refugees and Dreamers – including award-winning writers, artists and activists – that illuminate what it is like living undocumented today,” according to Grande’s website.

Grande is the author of the bestselling memoir, “The Distance Between Us” (2012) where she writes about her life before and after she arrived in the United States from Mexico as an undocumented child immigrant,” according to the website. The sequel, “A Dream Called Home,” was published in 2018.

Grande has received an American Book Award, the El Premio Aztlán Literary Award and the International Latino Book Award, according to the website. In 2012, she was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Awards, and in 2015 she was honored with a Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature. The young reader’s version of “The Distance Between Us” received a 2017 Honor Book Award for the Américas Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature and a 2016 Eureka! Honor Awards from the California Reading Association, and an International Literacy Association Children’s Book Award 2017.

“Writing about immigration, family separation, language trauma, the price of the American Dream and her writing journey, Grande’s work has appeared in “The New York Times,” “Dallas Morning News,” CNN and others. In March 2020, she was a guest in Oprah’s Book Club.

To participate in the Zoom presentation on May 12, sign into the waiting room at Topic: MV/SNM Reyna Grande to be admitted by 4:01 p.m. The meeting is at https://nmsu.zoom.us/j/91033680732. The ID is 910 3368 0732.

Email mesillavalleybookclub@gmail.com for more information.