Mother Tongue

About Mother Tongue

"It is a great beauty of a book, and I am so proud of you for standing with and for the disappeared. A sister, a lover, a witness."
–Alice Walker

Mary is nineteen and living alone in Albuquerque. Adrift in the wake of her mother’s death, she longs for something meaningful to take her over. Then José Luis enters her life. A refugee from El Salvador and its bloody civil war, José has been smuggled to the United States as part of the sanctuary movement.

Mary cannot help but fall in love with the movement and the man. And little by little, she begins to reveal to José Luis the part of herself she has never known. . . .

"A book that becomes more timely every day, in our present political climate, and deserves the widest possible audience for its beautiful prose and humanitarian heart."
–Barbara Kingsolver

"Demetria Martínez has pulled out all the stops: here is truth to arouse any hardened heart; here is the ‘insanity’ of a woman in love calling forth a revolutionary lucidity. Read it. Get angry. And act."
–Luis J. Rodríguez, Author of Always Running