Now, a Literary Moment...

The novel Bless Me, Ultima tells the story of a boy named Antonio, coming of age in rural New Mexico. His spiritual guide is a magical healer … a curandera named Ultima.

Author Rudolfo Anaya says she first came to him as a kind of vision …

Rudolfo Anaya: I was writing Antonio's story. This boy growing up in a small town and dealing with things that I did, you know? Fishing, and school. One night when I was writing late at night, Ultima appeared to me -- let me put it that way. She stood at the door, and she asked me what I was doing and I said I was writing a story. And she said that she had to be in the story. And when I asked her her name, she said, 'Ultima.' And that's when the novel came alive.

Rudolfo Anaya … on the inspiration for his first novel, Bless Me, Ultima.

This Literary Moment was created by the National Endowment for the Arts.