Justin Torres
{{Short description|American novelist (born 1980)}}
{{Use American English|date=April 2025}}
{{use mdy dates|date=April 2024}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Justin Torres
| image = Justin Torres - All in the Family.jpg
| imagesize =
| caption = Torres at Ubud Writers Festival 2012
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1980}}
| birth_place = New York City, U.S.
| occupation = Novelist, writer
| nationality = American, Puerto Rican
| education = New York University
The New School
University of Iowa
| period =
| notable_works = We the Animals (2011)
Blackouts (2023)
| awards = First Novelist Award
National Book Award for Fiction
| website = {{URL|http://www.justin-torres.com}}
}}
Justin Torres (born 1980) is an American novelist and an associate professor of English at University of California, Los Angeles.{{Cite web|url=https://blogs.loc.gov/catbird/2020/11/the-way-you-tell-the-story-justin-torres-on-writing/|title='The Way You Tell the Story': Justin Torres on Writing (Interview Series, The Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress)|website=www.loc.gov|date=November 10, 2020|access-date=April 23, 2024}} He won the First Novelist Award for his semi-autobiographical debut novel We the Animals (2011), which was also an Edmund White Award finalist and an NAACP Image Award for Debut Author nominee. The novel has been adapted into a film of the same title and was awarded the Next Innovator Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.{{Cite web|url=http://www.sundance.org/projects/next-innovator-award-we-the-animals|title=next-innovator-award-we-the-animals|website=www.sundance.org|access-date=2018-11-08|archive-date=March 5, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190305212653/http://www.sundance.org/projects/next-innovator-award-we-the-animals|url-status=dead}} Torres' second novel, Blackouts, won the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction.{{Cite web |last1=Harris |first1=Elizabeth A. |last2=Alter |first2=Alexandra |date=November 15, 2023 |title=Justin Torres, Author of 'Blackouts,' Wins National Book Award for Fiction |website=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/15/books/national-book-award-blackouts.html |access-date=November 20, 2023}}
Early life
Justin Torres was born to a father of Puerto Rican descent and a mother of Italian and Irish descent.{{Cite news|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111904199404576538703408808500|title=Keeping It All in the Family|last=Chai|first=Barbara|date=2011-08-30|work=Wall Street Journal|access-date=2018-10-11|language=en-US|issn=0099-9660}} He was raised in Baldwinsville, New York, as the youngest of three brothers.{{Cite news|url=https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Justin-Torres-author-of-We-the-Animals-2311073.php|title=Justin Torres, author of 'We the Animals'|date=2011-09-03|work=SFGate|access-date=2018-10-11}}{{Cite news|url=https://electricliterature.com/interview-justin-torres-author-of-we-the-animals-46e66f611309|title=Interview: Justin Torres, author of 'We the Animals'|date=2011-08-19|work=Electric Literature|access-date=2018-11-01}} Although his novel We the Animals is not an autobiography, Torres has said that the "hard facts" in the novel mirror his own life. City of God by Gil Cuadros, published in 1994, reportedly helped him to come out as gay.{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/01/book-helped-come-out-gay-edmund-white-sarah-waters-jeanette-winterson|title='At last I felt I fitted in': writers on the books that helped them come out|last1=Waters|first1=Sarah|last2=White|first2=Edmund|date=2017-07-01|website=The Guardian|language=en|access-date=2018-10-18|last3=Winterson|first3=Jeanette|last4=Kay|first4=Jackie|last5=Callow|first5=Simon|last6=Donoghue|first6=Emma}} After leaving his family home, Torres attended SUNY Purchase on scholarship but quickly dropped out.{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/justin-torress-art-of-exposure-and-concealment |title=Justin Torres's Art of Exposure and Concealment |magazine=The New Yorker |date=31 December 2023 |last1=Waldman |first1=Katy }} He spent a few years of moving around in the country and taking whatever job came, until a friend invited him to sit in a writing course taught at The New School, which motivated him to start writing seriously.{{Cite news|url=https://www.motherjones.com/media/2011/10/interview-justin-torres-we-the-animals/|title=Justin Torres' Hard-Knock Debut Novel|first=Tim|last=McDonnell|work=Mother Jones|access-date=2018-11-08|language=en-US}}
Career
In 2010, Torres received his master's degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He was a 2010–2012 Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.{{cite web|url=http://www.stanford.edu/group/creativewriting/fellows.html |title=Stanford Creative Writing Program |publisher=Stanford.edu |access-date=2011-11-20 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111113140755/http://www.stanford.edu/group/creativewriting/fellows.html |archive-date=November 13, 2011 }}
He was a recipient of the Rolón Fellowship in Literature from United States Artists. In the summer of 2016, Torres was the Picador Guest Professor for Literature at the University of Leipzig's Institute for American Studies in Leipzig, Germany.{{cite web|author=American Studies Leipzig |url=https://americanstudies.uni-leipzig.de/blogs/91/next-picador-professor-justin-torres |title=Next Picador Professor Justin Torres |date=March 7, 2016 |access-date=2017-02-12}} He is a former dog walker and a former employee of McNally Jackson, a bookstore in Manhattan. Torres is currently an associate professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles.{{cite web|url=https://english.ucla.edu/people-faculty/torres-justin/ |title=Torres, Justin |publisher=UCLA.edu |access-date=2024-04-07}}
He has published short fiction for The New Yorker,{{Cite magazine |last=Torres |first=Justin |date=2014-07-21 |title=Reverting to a Wild State |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/08/01/reverting-to-a-wild-state |access-date=2024-10-09 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}} Granta, Harper's, Tin House, Glimmer Train, The Washington Post, and other publications, as well as non-fiction for The Advocate and The Guardian.{{Cite web |title=National Book Foundation Author Bio |url=https://www.nationalbook.org/people/justin-torres-2/ |access-date=November 18, 2023 |website=National Book Foundation}}
A film adaptation of We the Animals, directed by Jeremiah Zagar, premiered in 2018 at the Sundance Film Festival,{{Cite news|url=http://filmmakermagazine.com/101134-the-50-most-anticipated-american-films-of-2017|title=The 50 Most Anticipated American Films of 2017 {{!}} Filmmaker Magazine|last=Schoenbrun|first=Dan|work=Filmmaker Magazine|access-date=2018-07-09|language=en-US}} where it won the Next Innovator Prize.
Awards and honors
Torres' first novel, We the Animals (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011),{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/books/review/we-the-animals-by-justin-torres-book-review.html | work=The New York Times | first=Joseph | last=Salvatore | title=We the Animals — By Justin Torres — Book Review | date=2011-09-23}} won an Indies Choice Book Awards (Adult Debut Honor Award) and was also a Publishing Triangle Award finalist and an NAACP Image Award nominee (Outstanding Literary Work, Debut Author)."[http://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/people/justin-torres Radcliffe Institute for Advance Study Harvard University Fellows: Justin Torres]" Harvard.edu. Retrieved 10-07-13. The novel also won the 2012 First Novelist Award.
Torres was named by Salon.com as one of the sexiest men of 2011.{{cite web|url=http://www.salon.com/2011/11/17/salons_sexiest_men_of_2011/slide_show/10/ |title=Salon's Sexiest Men of 2011 | Slide Show |work=Salon.com |date= 17 November 2011|access-date=2011-11-20}} In 2012, the National Book Foundation named him among their "5 Under 35" young fiction writers.[https://www.nationalbook.org/people/justin-torres/ Justin Torres] at National Book Foundation.[http://www.nationalbook.org/5under35_2012.html The National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35" Fiction, 2012]
His 2023 novel Blackouts, a historical fiction dealing with queer identity and suppression of LGBT culture, won the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction{{cite web |title=National Book Awards 2023 |url=https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-2023/ |publisher=National Book Foundation }} and was shortlisted for the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction{{cite web |url=https://www.them.us/story/lambda-literary-awards-2024-shortlist-announcement |title=Announcing the Finalists for the 36th Annual Lambda Literary Awards |work=them. |date=2024-03-27 |access-date=2024-04-05 }} and the 2024 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.{{Cite web |date=2024-06-11 |title=Orwell Prizes 2024 shortlists announced |url=https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2024/06/11/253173/orwell-prizes-2024-shortlists-announced/ |access-date=2024-06-24 |publisher=Books+Publishing}} In 2025, the novel made longlist for the International Dublin Literary Award.{{Cite web |last=IGO |date=2025-01-14 |title=Blackouts |url=https://dublinliteraryaward.ie/the-library/books/blackouts/ |access-date=2025-01-15 |website=Dublin Literary Award |language=en-US}}
Torres received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2024.{{Cite web|url=https://www.gf.org/announcements/|title=Announcements – John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation…|date=15 May 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240515223904/https://www.gf.org/announcements/ |archive-date=15 May 2024 }}
Works
= Novels =
- {{cite book |last=Justin Torres |title=We the Animals |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |year=2011 |isbn=9780547576725 |edition=hardcover 1st |location=Boston |language=en |author-mask=2}}
- {{cite book |last=Justin Torres |title=Blackouts |publisher=Macmillan |year=2023 |isbn=9780374293574 |edition=hardcover 1st |location=New York |author-mask=2}}
= Short stories =
- {{Cite journal |date=November 20, 2008 |year=2008 |title=Lessons |url=https://granta.com/lessons |journal=Granta |volume=104}}
- {{Cite magazine |date=August 1, 2011 |title=Reverting to a Wild State |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/08/01/reverting-to-a-wild-state |magazine=The New Yorker |volume=}}
- {{Cite magazine |date=October 2011 |title=Starve a Rat |url=https://harpers.org/archive/2011/10/starve-a-rat/ |magazine=Harper's Magazine |volume=}}
- {{Cite news |title=In the Reign of King Moonracer |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fiction-issue-in-the-reign-of-king-moonracer-by-justin-torres/2013/11/14/b3d49d06-3b36-11e3-a94f-b58017bfee6c_story.html |date=November 15, 2013 |newspaper=The Washington Post}}
- {{Cite book |last= |title=Dismantle: An Anthology of Writing from the Vona/Voices Writing Workshop |publisher=Thread Makes Blanket Press |year=2014 |isbn=9780989747417 |edition=paperback 1st |location=Philadelphia |language=en |chapter=Dark Mother}}
- {{Cite journal|title=Where's My Wild Horse, Come to Rescue Me?|journal=Flaunt|volume=125}}
= Articles =
- {{Cite magazine |date=September 3, 2013 |title=Breaking the Ice: What Russia's Queer Past Has to Tell Us About the Future |magazine=Out |doi= |pmid=}}
- {{Cite magazine |title=The James Baldwin Message for Trans People |url=https://www.advocate.com/print-issue/current-issue/2013/11/07/james-baldwin-message-trans-people |date=November 7, 2013 |magazine=The Advocate}}
- {{Cite magazine|date=March 13, 2014|title=Derek Jarman's Alternative to The New Gay Credo|magazine=The Advocate|url=https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2014/03/13/derek-jarmans-alternative-new-gay-credo}}
- {{Cite news |date=June 13, 2016 |title=In Praise of Latin Night at the Queer Club |newspaper=The Washington Post}}
- {{cite magazine |date=October 10, 2016 |title=Dog-Walking for a Wealthy Narcissist |magazine=The New Yorker |volume=92 |issue=32 |pages=60}}
- {{Cite news |title=The Rust Belt Whips and Snaps After Eight Years of Obama |date=January 13, 2017 |newspaper=The Washington Post}}
- {{Cite magazine |date=September 7, 2017 |title=Supportive Acts |magazine=Bomb Magazine |doi= |pmid=}}
- {{Cite magazine |date=November 6, 2018 |title=The Sordid Necessity of Living for Others |url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/essay/the-sordid-necessity-of-living-for-others |magazine=The New Yorker |volume=}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{Commons category|Justin Torres}}
- [https://justin-torres.com/ Justin Torres] – website
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20121110182231/http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?type=&id=952&fulltext=1&media= Daniel Olivas interviews Justin Torres], Los Angeles Review of Books, September 26, 2012.
- [http://brooklynrail.org/2011/12/books/justin-torres-with-jenine-holmes "In Conversation | Justin Torres and Jenine Holmes"], The Brooklyn Rail, December 2011–January 2012.
- [https://english.ucla.edu/people-faculty/torres-justin/ Faculty profile] at UCLA's English Department
- [https://www.nationalbook.org/people/justin-torres/ Profile] at National Book Foundation
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Torres, Justin}}
Category:21st-century American male writers
Category:21st-century American novelists
Category:American LGBTQ novelists
Category:American male novelists
Category:National Book Award winners
Category:Puerto Rican male writers
Category:21st-century Puerto Rican novelists