Keynote
A novel about how cotton workers transformed the Mexico-US borderlands, by a Pulitzer Prize–winning author
Book Title
Autobiography of Cotton
Subtitle
A Novel
Cover Image
“A sumptuous work of autofiction that plumbs the mirage-like landscapes of the border region and the frictions that simmer between neighboring nations. In dense, lyrical prose, Rivera Garza weaves in an array of political and historical allusions, highlighting the human costs and environmental degradation caused by the cash crop that created our modern world.”—Time, “The 36 Most Anticipated Books of 2026”
Body
In 1934, a young José Revueltas traveled to Tamaulipas to support the cotton workers’ strike in Estación Camarón, which became the basis of his landmark novel Human Mourning. In her own groundbreaking novel, Autobiography of Cotton, Cristina Rivera Garza recounts her grandparents’ journey from mining towns to those same cotton fields as it intersects with Revueltas’s life in a vivid and evocative history of cotton cultivation along the Mexico-US border.
Through archival research and personal narrative, Rivera Garza chronicles the way cotton transformed the borderlands by reconstructing the cotton workers’ strike and reveals how cycles of deprivation and ecocide persist across generations. Deeply personal and politically acute, Rivera Garza crafts a new kind of border novel that tells how a brittle land radically altered her grandparents’ lives and the territories they helped develop. An intimate fictionalization, Autobiography of Cotton reveals a rich social history of agricultural colonization, labor activism, environmental degradation, and cross-border migration.
Through archival research and personal narrative, Rivera Garza chronicles the way cotton transformed the borderlands by reconstructing the cotton workers’ strike and reveals how cycles of deprivation and ecocide persist across generations. Deeply personal and politically acute, Rivera Garza crafts a new kind of border novel that tells how a brittle land radically altered her grandparents’ lives and the territories they helped develop. An intimate fictionalization, Autobiography of Cotton reveals a rich social history of agricultural colonization, labor activism, environmental degradation, and cross-border migration.
List Price
$17.00
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About the Author
Credit: Annette Hornischer
Upcoming Events
Cristina Rivera Garza reading and in conversation at the Center for Fiction about AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF COTTON
Date:
Location:
Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, NYview map
Praise
“An impassioned testament to resilience and struggle. It’s not to be missed.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A masterful blend of genres from a shining light of Mexican literature.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“A historical novel braided with deep personal narrative and research, creating something unique and almost indefinable.”—Literary Hub, ”Most Anticipated Books of 2026”
- “Cristina Rivera Garza—mythmaker, archivist, historiographer, etymologist, and philosopher—reveals the blood-soaked blossom between parallel histories. Rooted in careful research, Autobiography of Cotton is a triumph of the critical and speculative imagination.”—Vanessa Angélica Villarreal
