Jennifer Givhan Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Jennifer Givhan is a popular bestselling Mexican-American indigenous novelist and poet from the Southwestern desert.

For her work, she has received several fellowships from the likes of the Rosenthal Emerging Voices/PEN and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Givhan authored more than five full-length poetry collections such as the University of Arizona Press published “Rosa’s Einstein” and the novels “Jubilee” and “Trinity Sight” which made the final shortlist for the New Mexico-Arizona Awards.
Several of her works including novels such as “River Demon,” “River Woman,” and the poetry collection “Belly to the Brutal” are inspired by her practice of Brujeria.

Given the popularity of her creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, her works have been featured in the likes of Salon, The New Republic, The Rumpus, The Nation, The Boston Review, TriQuarterly, and POETRY.
In addition to being the recipient of many awards, such as the Pinch Journal Poetry Prize and the Poetry Prize by New Ohio, she is also a professor at the Bothell MFA program at the University of Washington.
She has also been a guest lecturer at Western New Mexico University among several other universities across the United States. Given currently makes her home in Albuquerque in New Mexico.

Givhan grew up in a small border community in the Southern California desert known as the Imperial Valley.

Her family has ancestral connections to the indigenous peoples of Mexico, Texas, and New Mexico such as the Tiguan Indians and the Ysleta del Sur of El Paso.

Writing is something that Jennifer has been doing ever since she was a child when she used to write poems for the school newspaper. However, it was when she was doing her graduate studies that she started taking writing seriously.
Later on, she got her Poetry MFA from Warren Wilson College. She got a Creative Writing and English Literature master’s degree from California State University Fullerton where she had been granted a Graduate Equity Fellowship.
During her graduate studies, her professor allowed her to pen several poems and manuscripts. She penned several works about what she was going through with her failure in getting a child, infertility, women’s bodies, and adopting a son.
It was during this time that Givhan learned all about the view that was popularized by Adrienne Rich who asserted that each person is political as she lived out that assertion in her poems.

Jennifer Givhan’s works usually tend towards themes of dark psychological motherhood and magical realism.

They usually reflect back on darker socio-political landscapes, even though she sometimes pens shadow works that reveal the light in her.

In fact, she has said that she pens her novels so that she can shine a hopeful light in the midst of all the darkness.

Among some of her biggest influences include the likes of Ana Castillo, and Toni Morrison even though in recent times she has also been reading the likes of “The Changeling” by Victor Lavalle and “Sing, Unburied, Sing” by Jesmyn Ward.
She is also a big lover of empowering and mentoring writers while raising her two kids in her home in Albuquerque in New Mexico.

“River Woman, River Demon” is an interesting work that tells the story of a woman named Eva.

Eva Santo Moon is an increasingly popular Chicana artist who practices the spiritual and ancient ways of curandesma and Brujeria but now finds herself at her lowest.

She has to deal with creative stagnation, disorienting blackouts, and feeling disconnected from her magickal roots.

Things only get worse when her husband who is a very popular professor at the local university who holds their family together is arrested for the brutal murder of their friend.

Soon enough, Eva learns that she is also a potential suspect in the police investigation. Her past begins resurfacing and the dark truths from her childhood begin being dredged up.
She has to deal with self-doubt and amnesia and starts fearing that she might have been involved in the murders. The big question is why can she not remember anything?

It is only the dead women who know what happened and now they are coming for her with a vengeance.

Fighting to keep her family safe, she finally comes to the realization that her best weapon is to use magick as a bruja to protect her from her dark history and to protect her loved ones and herself.

Jennifer Givhan’s novel “Trinity Sight” is the story of a college professor and anthropologist Calliope Santiago.

She has seen a shock of light while driving home and passed out. When she woke up, she found herself in something of a post-apocalyptic world in which almost everyone had gone missing including her son and her husband.
The streets are clogged up with empty cars and what had been a long-dormant volcano has been erupting for several hours.

This had happened at the worst possible time as she is expecting twins and had to run for safety trying to find her missing family.

She teams up with other survivors and goes on a heart-pounding journey across an impossible shifting landscape full of mythic monsters.
It makes for an action-packed story that continually throws new obstacles and adventures at its characters.

At its heart, this stunningly inventive and wildly imaginative story is about a woman coming to know her place in the world, her strength, and her journey toward knowing her connection with her ancestors.

“Jubilee” by Jennifer Givhan is a work with storytelling and prose reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s though the voice is all Jennifer.

Bianca had arrived at her brother’s house one night barely conscious, bleeding, and holding firmly in her hands Jubilee, a doll she believes is her daughter.
It is not long before her family comes to the realization that she is suffering from trauma that has resulted in a strong delusion.

They decide to play along with her delusion but as she heals, she still relies on the doll as a shield against her emotional pain.

Even when she meets the kind single father Joshua who is very drawn to her, she cannot seem to be able to come out of her delusion.

It is a story that weaves in and out as it chronicles her past with Gabe her ex-boyfriend and her present with Joshua.

Every narrative is as stunning and riveting as the other until you get to learn the poignant and full story of who the doll is and what it represents.