**From one of the nation's foremost Chicano literary artists comes a
coming-of-age classic and the bestselling Chicano novel of all time that
follows a young boy as he questions his faith and beliefs -- now one of
PBS's 100 Great American Reads (Denver Post).
**
****Antonio Marez is six years old when Ultima comes to stay with his
family in New Mexico. She is a curandera, one who cures with herbs and
magic. Under her wise wing, Tony will probe the family ties that bind
and rend him, and he will discover himself in the magical secrets of the
pagan past--a mythic legacy as palpable as the Catholicism of Latin
America. And at each life turn there is Ultima, who delivered Tony into
the world... and will nurture the birth of his soul.