Cinco Puntos Press


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.
WWW cincopuntos.com

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, 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. 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.
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.

Significant awards

The company has won several awards:
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.