My Penitente Land

FRAY ANGÉLICO CHÁVEZ has been called a renaissance man and New Mexico's foremost twentieth-century humanist by biographer Ellen McCracken. Any way you measure his career, Fray Angélico Chávez was an unexpected phenomenon in the wide and sunlit land of the American Southwest. In the decades following his ordination as a Franciscan priest in 1937, Chávez performed the difficult duties of an isolated backcountry pastor. His assignments included Hispanic villages and Indian pueblos. As an army chaplain in World War II, he accompanied troops in bloody landings on Pacific islands, claiming afterwards that because of his small stature, Japanese bullets always missed him. In time, despite heavy clerical duties, Fray Angélico managed to become an author of note as well as something of an artist and muralist. Upon all of his endeavors one finds, understandably, the imprint of his religious perspective. During nearly seventy years of writing, he published almost two dozen books. Among them were novels, essays, poetry, biographies, and histories. All true aficionados of the American Southwest's history and culture will profit by collecting and reading the significant body of work left to us by the remarkable Fray Angélico Chávez. Sunstone Press has now brought back into print some of these rare titles including "La Conquistadora," "Our Lady of the Conquest," "But Time and Chance: The Story of Padre Martinez of Taos, 1793-1867," "New Mexico Triptych," and "Chavez: A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico."