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Monday, October 31, 2016

A Visit to Allá in Santa Fe

Yes, the focus of this "Marfa Mondays" blog, the podcast series, and the book-in-progress is Far West Texas or Trans-Pecos Texas. But this region is economically, culturally and altogether every way connected to that string of towns and pueblos along the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, and that includes Santa Fe, New Mexico. So with that as justification I present this brief blog post on Allá-- excerpted from a longer post over on my main blog, Madam Mayo, about the recent Women Writing the West conference.

A VISIT TO ALLÁ, THE BEST SPANISH LANGUAGE BOOKSTORE NORTH OF THE BORDER

So many writers and translators over the years have told me about Allá (I mean you, José SkinnerRaymond CaballeroPatricia Dubrava...) I could not imagine visiting Santa Fe without seeing it. I had heard that Allá was on the southwest corner of the Plaza, but on my previous visit to Santa Fe, I couldn't find it. This time, armed with the precise address, 102 West San Francisco St, and my smartphone's map app, I discovered that it is a little ways past southwest corner of the Plaza, and you won't find a sign on the street. However, as you can see in the photo below, there is a reference Allá Arte- Libros - Música pasted in between some steps on the stairs. 

So head on up to the second floor, hang a right, and there you may enter into the bright warren of rooms all filled with tesoros, both literary and scholarlyand if you're lucky, meet the owner himself, James J. Dunlap.




Yes, here you can find Mexican writers such as Agustín Cadena and Mónica Lavín. And bless his corazón, he had books on Mexico in English by my amigos, Bruce Berger and David Lida and... drumrrrrrrroll... he had 
two of my books sitting out on the table, Mexico A Traveler's Literary Companion and Sky Over El Nido, and he said he had just recently sold another title, Miraculous Air, my memoir of Mexico's Baja California peninsula. 


[[ JAMES J. DUNLAP, ALLÁ IN SANTA FE ]]

Speaking of miracles, my luggage accommodated the pile of books I hauled out of there, including some Mexican scholarly works on the Apaches and Comanches that, from Mexico City, I have been trying to hunt down for over a year. Somehow I also took home a fat hardcover first edition of a memoir of life among some indigenous people in Tierra del Fuego. 
Visit Allá at your own risk! If you dare, tell Jim that Mayo told you to ask about a-gogo and psícadelico


> See also the article by Uriel J. Garcia in Santa Fe New Mexican, "Allá Bookstore is Santa Fe Man's Portal to Latin America"
> Your comments are always very welcome. Write to me here.


> The much-delayed Marfa Mondays Podcast 21 is almost ready to post. Meanwhile, listen in to the other 20 podcasts anytime here.