NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER:

alternaCtive publicaCtions is proud to offer its visitors the unique opportunity to read Rolando Hinojosa’s earliest preserved writings, published here for the first time.

Hinojosa wrote these five short pieces when he was a senior in high school, during the 1945-1946 academic year, two in 1945 and three in 1946. Since then, they have been kept at the Mercedes High School library, in south Texas, bound with other similar student contributions in a volume labeled Creative Bits.

In March 2010, the author and I traveled to Mercedes, with the intention of recovering his early writings for research and publication purposes. At his alma mater, Hinojosa received a well-deserved homage, and he spent his time with teachers, librarians, and students, while I concentrated on the Creative Bits.

With the author’s permission, and with our thanks to Ms. Mary Lou García and her staff at the Mercedes High School Library, we are now in a position to share these memorable compositions with you.

As I have explored in more detail elsewhere (“Aprendiendo el oficio: Los Creative Bits de Rolando Hinojosa, 1946,” forthcoming) these early writings offer us an exceptional glimpse of the author as a young man learning his trade, and it is not difficult to see in them some of the themes, preoccupations, and stylistic features that would also characterize Hinojosa’s later works.

In discussing these works with him, Hinojosa advised me that he did not type the original manuscripts. Therefore, I have taken the liberty of correcting a few typos that he had also noticed. Other than that, the texts are presented here in their entirety. Enjoy!

Manuel M. Martín-Rodríguez
June 26, 2010

P.S. For an analysis of Hinojosa’s Creative Bits, please see my recently published article “Aprendiendo el oficio: Los Creative Bits de Rolando Hinojosa (1946).” Puentes: Revista méxico-chicana de literatura, cultura y arte 8 (2010): 66-79.  (or the English-language version “Rolando Hinojosa’s Earliest Works: The Five ‘Creative Bits’ from 1946.” Puentes: Revista méxico-chicana de literatura, cultura y arte 9 (2011): 61-72.)

To read Rolando Hinojosa’s Creative Bits, click here. AND THEN ON THE UNDERLINED “CREATIVE BITS” ON THE NEXT PAGE