In this anniversary edition of Contrapuntos X: West, the second part of the tenth issue, we aim to offer a glimpse (although this endeavor is always audacious) into the voices and pens residing in the United States. Their location (according to geographical regions that serve as reading guides rather than mere labels) constitutes a simultaneous dialogue, a geography of literary texts and critical reflections that represent a current (though not exhaustive by any means) sample of the vast talent and the relevance of the themes addressed by the authors.
Language, memories, longing, and the challenges that shape the daily lives of those who physically distance themselves from their familiar environment to settle in a new place are the raw materials (whether autobiographical or metaphorical) that underpin the texts and art gathered in this edition. Thus, we have decided to present the content in a volume that brings together authors from the Southwest and Northwest of the United States under the title of "West." Furthermore, our intention is for the order of the contents and the themes addressed to represent the stages of a journey between borders, coordinates, and memories, using the blank page as a cartography upon which the suggested topics of each reading are recorded.
In this manner, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and parallel routes serve as the four coordinates through which the reader can navigate, pause, return, and find guidance. The poetic section begins precisely with the image of a journey, through poetic voices that inhabit or describe places through imagination, memory, and present reality. The transformation that these journeys entail in the perception of migrants is examined in the non-fiction section through socioeconomic, gender, and linguistic criticism, as the authors provide texts that invite reflection on how survival in another country and under different conditions entails being aware of one's own identity and the impact our actions have on our surroundings. On the other hand, the "fiction" section offers a series of stories in which characters face various trials in extreme contexts, compelling the reader to examine the body and memory as extensions of other geographical, political, or social spaces.
For more than ten years, the editorial team of Contrapuntos has worked to provide a space for non-conventional, heterogeneous, and, to some extent, more independent literary voices (without compromising their quality) to reach more readers worldwide. At the same time, this work offers readers truly relevant content that would otherwise be marginalized in a tortuous publishing endeavor. Of course, the fruits of this decade of work would not have been possible without the contributions of numerous guest editors, writers, poets, storytellers, and visual artists who have believed from the beginning in the value and importance of supporting these "cultural resistances" in the face of a market that, for various reasons, tends to homogenize current artistic offerings.
Let us celebrate, then, that the texts gathered here have reached your reader's hands, and we hope you find among them lines that resonate and contribute to expanding the literary borders as manifestations of human experiences."
