Kali Fajardo-Anstine's Woman of Light was first published in May 2022 by One World. Fajardo-Anstine's novel tells the story of a young woman named Luz “Little Light” Lopez, a tea leaf reader and launderer who is forced to fend for herself after her brother is thrown out of town by a violent white mob.
As Luz struggles to survive the new conditions that she finds herself in Denver in the 1930s, she has strange visions that transport her to the so-called "Lost Territory." There, Luz explores her ancestry, how badly her ancestors were treated by malevolent forces, and the stories of her ancestors and her people. Quickly, it becomes clear that without Luz, those stories will cease to exist if she doesn't save them.
For Fajardo-Anstine, Luz's story is deeply personal. Many of her novels have focused on Latina and Native American protagonists in Denver, Colorado and the American West. Fajardo-Anstine is both Latina and Native American and is from Denver. The extent to which Woman of Light is personal to Fajardo-Anstine and relevant to her is evident in the novel's reviews. In their glowing review of the novel, The Guardian called Fajardo-Anstine "brilliant" and says that "She offers a fascinatingly rich setting that depicts American western self-mythologisation in the making."
