The other California: land, identity and politics on the Mexican borderlands - 9 ([Enl. ed.].)

This enlarged edition of "The other California", originally published in 1990, contains nineteen essays (six of them new to this collection) on the landscape, literature, and life in the Great Central Valley of California.

A vast, flat patchwork of fields and orchards about the size of England, the Valley has become the richest farming region in the history of the world.

It also has a rich literary tradition: William Saroyan, Joan Didion, William Everson, Maxine Hong Kingston, Gary Soto, and Richard Rodriguez were all raised in this agricultural heartland.;Haslam's collection represents the experience of living in the Valley through a variety of writings; some are personal, some regional, others literary.

Many of these essays were originally published in national magazines; and, as a group, they offer readers a fine collection of writings on the landscape and literature of California's Great Central Valley.;Gerald W.

Haslam has published six collections of short stories -- most recently That constant coyote which was awarded the PEN /Oakland Josephine Miles Prize for Excellence in Literature.

Haslam's career as a writer has been marked by his use of California's rural and small-town areas, its poor and working-class people of all ethnic backgrounds, to explore the human condition.

He is a Professor of English at Sonoma State University.