Cinco Puntos Press is an imprint of publishing company Lee & Low Books. It was founded in 1985 and began publishing bilingual books for both children and adults, prominently including books about the Mexico–United States border region. The publisher was subject to controversy in 1999 when it published The Story of Colors by Subcomandante Marcos. It was sold to Lee & Low Books in 2021.
History Cinco Puntos Press was founded by novelist Lee Merrill Byrd and poet Bobby Byrd in 1985. It became known for publishing books with a multi-cultural and political focus for both children and adults,Cinco Puntos Press Website: About Us with a focus on bilingual children's books and fiction and non-fiction about the Mexico–United States border region.
Cinco Puntos received national notoriety when, in March 1999, it published the book The Story of Colors / La Historia de los colores written by Subcomandante Marcos, the leader of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in Mexico, causing the National Endowment for the Arts to pull funding for the publisher.National Endowment for the Arts. NPR, March 10, 1999.NEA Couldn't Tell a Book by Its Cover. The New York Times, March 10, 1999 The Lannan Foundation provided Cinco Puntos Press with twice the amount of the lost funding, and Cinco Puntos Press sold out their first printing of the book in days.NEA Cancels Grant to Children's Book Written by Marcos; Lannan Foundation Will Provide the Money. Artscope, Marcy 11, 1999.
Cinco Puntos Press was sold to Lee & Low Books in June 2021.
Notable authors Cinco Puntos Press authors include Joe Hayes, Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Sergio Troncoso, Tim Tingle, George Ella Lyon, Dagoberto Gilb, David Romo, Lisa Sandlin, Robert Boswell, Gary Cartwright, Xavier Garza, James Carlos Blake, Subcomandante Marcos, Byrd Baylor, J.L. Powers, Youme Landowne, Paco Ignacio Taibo II.Cinco Puntos Press Website: Authors
Significant awards The company has won several awards:
Lannan Foundation, 2005—Publisher Bobby Byrd and Lee Merrill Byrd awarded Cultural Freedom Fellowships for Excellence in PublishingLannan Foundation: Bobby Byrd and Lee Merrill Byrd Each Awarded 2005 Cultural Freedom Fellowship Before Columbus Foundation, The American Book Award, 1999, for Excellence in PublishingPublishers Weekly: And the Winners Were... Rocky Mountain Publishing Association—the Dwight A. Myers Award, 1997, for Excellence in Regional PublishingCinco Puntos Press: Awards Border Regional Library Association—the Southwest Book Award, 1993, for Excellence in PublishingTaos Writers Conference: Lee and Bobby Byrd
In addition, author Benjamin Alire Sáenz won a PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and a Lambda Literary Award in 2013 for his book Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club, published by Cinco Puntos in 2012.
References
External links Cinco Puntos Press Official site