From its beginnings on the artistic fringe during the Hispanic Civil Rights Movement to its current status as the oldest and most accomplished publisher of contemporary and recovered literature by US Hispanic authors, Arte Público Press and its imprint, Piñata Books, have become a showcase for Hispanic literary creativity, arts and culture.
The original publishers of Sandra Cisneros’ seminal The House on Mango Street, Arte Público’s other well-known authors include Obie-award-winning playwright and filmmaker Luis Valdez, playwright Miguel Piñero and best-selling authors Nicholasa Mohr, Victor Villaseñor, and Helena María Viramontes. As part of the ongoing efforts to bring Hispanic literature to mainstream audiences, Arte Público Press launched the Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Program in 1992. This program represents the first nationally coordinated attempt to recover, index and publish lost Latino writings that date from the American colonial period through 1960. [from the publisher’s web site].
From children’s books and contemporary fiction to critical social history, the UC Berkeley Library is proud to hold most of Arte Púbico Press’ bilingual catalog of publications in the Main (Gardner) Stacks, the Ethnic Studies Library, and The Bancroft Library. In recent years, the Library has also acquired many of its publications in digital form through Digitalia Hispánica, Latino Literature, and other ebook platforms such as OverDrive. These can be discovered in UC Library Search with keyword phrase “arte publico press” and limiting to online through UC Berkeley.
