San Antonio College Library

A collection of stories on the Navajo Indians. The stories range from the Navajo version of the creation of the world, to efforts by old people to save the Indian youth from white ways.

"A young man journeys into Sri Lanka's formerly war-torn north, and into a country's soul, in this searing novel of love and the legacy of war from the award-winning author of The Story of a Brief Marriage. "The closest we seem to get to the present are those brief moments we stop to consider the spaces our bodies are occupying, the warmth of the sheets in which we wake, the scratched surface of the window on a train taking us somewhere else..." A...

This story of a young woman's confrontation with death and her past is a poetic study of human relations. "The Optimist's Daughter" is the story of Laurel McKelva Hand, a young woman who has left the South and returns, years later, to New Orleans, where her father is dying. After his death, she and her silly young stepmother go back still farther, to the small Mississippi town where she grew up. Alone in the old house, Laurel finally comes to an understanding...

In Jamaica, Sareen is concerned about participating in her first sit-up, a celebration of the life of her recently deceased grandmother, but discovers that sharing her stories of Nana's passion for mangoes helps lift the sadness.

Five-year-old Emily tries to understand her grandfather's death by exploring the Christian and Jewish rituals that her family practices during and after his funeral.