Author Elizabeth González James is the first of TAMIU’s Spring 2025 Border Voices Lecture Series Distinguished Presenters.
She will read from her novel, The Bullet Swallower, on Thursday, February 6, at 6:30 p.m. at the Webb County Heritage Foundation’s Villa Antigua Border Heritage Museum at 810 Zaragoza Street.
The Bullet Swallower (El Traga Balas) is a magical realism western set in the 1890s on the borderlands of Texas and Mexico. The novel centers on a bandit named Antonio Sonoro, who in real life was named Antonio González Guerra. He was González James’ great-grandfather.
The novel’s well-crafted narrative details some the cruel aspects of the early Spanish colonizers of the region, the enslaved workforce of the indigenous population, the brutality of Anglo racism, and the murderous acts of the Texas Rangers.
González James, who lived in Laredo as a youngster, is also the author of the novel Mona at Sea. Her stories and essays have appeared in The Idaho Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Rumpus, StorySouth, PANK, and elsewhere, and have received numerous Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations.
Dr. Adam Kozaczka and Dr. Zachary Hernández of TAMIU’s College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Humanities present the Border Voices series. It is funded by Humanities Texas and supported by TAMIU and community partners, the Laredo Public Library and the Webb County Heritage Foundation.
Photos by Edwardo García
