Twenty miles wide and two thousand long, the U.S.-Mexico borderland is a country unto itself that has been celebrated in the works of many writers--and not just those who call it home. Here artists as disparate as Carlos Fuentes, Maya Angelou, and Allen Ginsberg have found literary inspiration, presenting the region through varied viewpoints that give border writing its unusual scope and texture.

This wide-ranging anthology--gathering short stories and essays, song lyrics and poems--offers readers a new appreciation of the border and its literature. Residents of the region may be...