Luis Alberto Urrea

{{Infobox writer

| name =Luis Alberto Urrea

| image =Luis Alberto Urrea 2015.jpg

| alt = head and shoulders of Urrea with light brown hair, black glasses, with a goatee

| caption =Luis Alberto Urrea at the 2015 Texas Book Festival.

| birth_date ={{Birth date and age|1955|08|20}}

| birth_place =Tijuana, Mexico

| death_place =

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| language =

| nationality = Mexican and American

| citizenship = US

| occupation =Novelist, essayist

| genres = poetry, novel, nonfiction

| education =

|alma_mater = University of California, San Diego, University of Colorado at Boulder

| notableworks = Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life, The Hummingbird's Daughter

| spouse =

| partner =

| children =

| relatives =

| awards = American Book Award 1999
Latino Literature Hall of Fame 2000
Edgar Award 2010
Lannan Literary Award 2004

| signature =

| signature_alt =

| years_active =

| module =

| website = {{URL|http://luisurrea.com/}}

}}

Luis Alberto Urrea (born August 20, 1955 in Tijuana, Mexico) is a Mexican-American poet, novelist, and essayist.

Life

Luis Urrea is the son of Alberto Urrea Murray, of Rosario, Sinaloa, Mexico and Phyllis Dashiell, born in Staten Island, New York. He was born in Tijuana, Mexico, and listed as an American born abroad. Both his parents worked in San Diego. The family moved to Logan Heights in South San Diego, because he had tuberculosis and they felt he would recover in the US.{{cite news |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/profiles/article/76133-luis-alberto-urrea-tells-a-quintessential-mexican-american-story.html |title=Luis Alberto Urrea Tells a Quintessential Mexican American Story |first=Claire |last=Kirch |work=Publishers Weekly |date=February 23, 2018 |access-date=March 7, 2018}} The family moved again in 1965 to Clairemont, a newer subdivision in the city of San Diego. His mother encouraged him to write and encouraged him to attend college and to apply for grants that would help pay for his college education. He attended the University of California, San Diego, earning an undergraduate degree in writing in 1977.{{cite book |last=González-T. |first=César A. |chapter=Luis Alberto Urrea |series=Chicano Writers: Third Series |editor-first1=Francisco A. |editor-last1=Lomeli |editor-first2=Carl R. |editor-last2=Shirley |publisher=Gale, Literature Resource Center |location=Detroit |year=1999 |title=Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol 209 |url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=LitRC&sw=w&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CH1200008862&it=r&asid=f769d80d3a35b2f146bfd6df61e56417 |access-date=November 7, 2017}} Urrea completed his graduate studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His father was murdered on a trip to his home village in 1977, seeking money there to spend on his son's college education. This motivated Urrea to write an essay that was published in 1980, as way of processing his grief.

After serving as a relief worker in Tijuana, he worked as a teachers aide in the Chicano Studies department in San Diego's Mesa College in 1978. He also worked as a film extra and columnist-editor-cartoonist for several publications. In June 1982 Urrea moved to Boston where he taught expository writing and fiction workshops at Harvard University. He has also taught at Massachusetts Bay Community College, and the University of Colorado, and he was the writer in residence at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Urrea married in 1987, and later divorced in 1993. In 1994, Urrea's first novel, In Search of Snow, was published. His mother died in 1990, bringing Urrea back to California to settle her affairs, and parts of Across the Wire were published in the San Diego Reader.

Urrea lives with his family in Naperville, Illinois, where he is a professor of creative writing at the University of Illinois at Chicago.{{Cite web |url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=82687 |title=Luis Alberto Urrea |website=Poetry Foundation |access-date=November 14, 2017}}

In two heavily researched historical novels, The Hummingbird's Daughter and Queen of America, Urrea tells the story of his father's aunt, Teresita Urrea, who was known as "The Saint of Cabora" and "The Mexican Joan of Arc."

Awards

Urrea's first book, Across the Wire, was named a New York Times Notable Book and won the Christopher Award in 1993.

In 1994, he won the Colorado Book Award in poetry for The Fever of Being{{cite web |url=http://www.coloradohumanities.org/ccftb/documents/Winners1991-2007.pdf |title=List of Winners, 1991-2007 |publisher=Colorado Book Award |access-date=July 18, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303214423/http://www.coloradohumanities.org/ccftb/documents/Winners1991-2007.pdf |archive-date=March 3, 2016 |url-status=dead }} as well as the Western States Book Award in poetry. He was also included in The 1996 Best American Poetry collection.

In 1999, Urrea won an American Book Award for his memoir, Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life.{{Cite web|url=http://www.newletters.org/on-the-air/urrea |title=Urrea, Luis Alberto|website=New Letters on the Air |year=2012 |access-date=November 16, 2017 |last=Elam |first=Angela}}

His book of short stories, Six Kinds of Sky, was named the 2002 small-press Book of the Year in fiction by the editors of ForeWord magazine.{{Cite web |url=https://ar.usembassy.gov/education-culture/los-angeles-guest-city-buenos-aires-international-book-fair/luis-alberto-urrea/ |title=Luis Alberto Urrea |work=U.S. Embassy in Argentina |access-date=November 16, 2017}}

In 2000, he was voted into the Latino Literature Hall of Fame following the publication of Vatos.

The Devil's Highway won the 2004 Lannan Literary Award,{{Cite web|url=https://lannan.org/bios/luis-alberto-urrea|title=Luis Alberto Urrea|website=Lannan Foundation|language=en-us|access-date=November 14, 2017}} the Border Regional Library Association's Southwest Book Award,"BRLA 2004 Southwest Book Awards." Border Regional Library Association. 2008. Web. 26 July 2009. and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and for the Pacific Rim Kiriyama Prize. It was also optioned for a film by CDI Producciones. The book was adopted as the 2010 One Book for Sac State.{{Cite web|url=http://www.csus.edu/sacstatenews/Articles/2010/09/one-book-continues-with-the-devils-highway.html|title=ONE BOOK CONTINUES WITH "THE DEVIL'S|date=October 12, 2010 |website=Sacramento State|language=en|access-date=November 14, 2017}}

His short story "Amapola", which can be found in Phoenix Noir edited by Patrick Millikin and Urrea's own The Water Museum, won the Edgar Award in 2010 for best mystery short story.{{Cite web|url=https://chamberfour.wordpress.com/tag/2010-edgar-awards/ |title=Edgar Wrap-Up: Batting .500 |publisher=Chamber Four |first=Nico |last=Vreeland |date=April 29, 2010 |access-date=November 16, 2017}}

In 2019, he was presented the Founders Award at the Tucson Festival of Books. The award recognizes exceptional literary achievement.{{cite web |url=https://tucson.com/entertainment/books/get-ready-to-celebrate-at-the-tucson-festival-of-books/collection_7c9a5b70-379b-11e9-879a-cf7d0e28c9a7.html#1 |title=Get ready to celebrate at the Tucson Festival of Books |author= |date=24 February 2019 |website=Tucson.com |publisher=Arizona Daily Star |access-date=7 March 2019 }}

Criticism

Mythili G. Rao of the New York Times compares both of Urrea's heavily researched novels in an article titled "The Most Dangerous Girl in Mexico goes to America"; Rao writes, "Where The Hummingbird's Daughter was driven by an otherworldly mysticism and the call of fate, its sequel is largely occupied with the ordinary troubles of mortal life".{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/books/review/queen-of-america-by-luis-alberto-urrea-book-review.html|title=Queen Of America – By Luis Alberto Urrea – Book Review |last=Rao|first=Mythili G.|date=December 23, 2011 |newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=November 9, 2017 |issn=0362-4331}} Stacey D'Erasmo, also from the New York Times has reviewed Urrea's novel "The Hummingbird's Daughter". Praising him for his literature style she writes, "The style that Urrea has adopted to tell Teresita's—and Mexico's—story [is]...simultaneously dreamy, telegraphic and quietly lyrical. Like a vast mural, the book displays a huge cast of workers, whores, cowboys, rich men, bandits and saints while simultaneously making them seem to float on the page".{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/03/books/review/the-hummingbirds-daughter-a-saint-with-grit.html |title='The Hummingbird's Daughter': A Saint With Grit |last=D'Erasmo|first=Stacey |date=July 3, 2005 |newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=November 9, 2017 |issn=0362-4331}} Joanne Omang, from the Washington Post writes, "The Hummingbird's Daughter is paced beautifully, inexorable and slow-seeming as life itself. The daily trivia of Teresita's childhood is as fascinating as the punctuations of amazements, beauties and horrors".{{Cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/02/AR2005060201527.html |title=Child of Fortune|last=Omang |first=Joanne |newspaper=The Washington Post|date=June 5, 2005 |access-date=November 16, 2017 |issn=0190-8286}} Luis Alberto Urrea is also admired by Sandra Dijkstra of Publishers Weekly; she writes, "His brilliant prose is saturated with the cadences and insights of Latin-American magical realism and tempered by his exacting reporter's eye and extensive historical investigation".{{Cite news |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-316-74546-8|title=Fiction Book Review: THE HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER by Luis Alberto Urrea, Author. Little, Brown $24.95 (512p) {{Text|ISBN}} 978-0-316-74546-8|work=Publishers Weekly |access-date=November 10, 2017}}

The House of Broken Angels, his novel published in March 2018, is based in part on the death of the author's eldest brother, his half-brother raised in Mexico. Urrea said in an interview with Terry Gross that he expanded the novel with a sense of the status between Mexico and the United States since Trump became president of the US in 2017: "But then as I expanded it, ... it started taking on more of a cultural statement and turned into a novel, which seemed to want to become epic. I couldn't shake my growing sense of rage and astonishment at the tone."{{cite news |url=https://www.npr.org/2018/03/05/590839936/mexican-american-author-finds-inspiration-in-family-tragedy-and-trump |title=Mexican-American Author Finds Inspiration In Family, Tragedy And Trump. |publisher=NPR Fresh Air |last=Gross |first=Terry |date=5 March 2018 |access-date=March 5, 2018}} Michael Upchurch in the Chicago Tribune remarked the wonderful turns of phrase in the novel about a family sprawling across the US-Mexico border and the sense of place, "You couldn't ask for a more vivid sense of place either, whether you're talking physical surroundings ("The funeral home had a fake Germanic facade and stood across the street from a taco shop, a gas station and a Starbucks") or the way people think and speak.{{cite news |url=http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/ct-books-house-of-broken-angels-luis-alberto-urrea-0306-story.html |title=Naperville's Luis Alberto Urrea returns with epic family drama in 'The House of Broken Angels' |last=Upchurch |first=Michael |newspaper=Chicago Tribune |date=March 5, 2018 |access-date=March 5, 2018}} In an interview with Claire Kirch published in Publishers Weekly, Urrea said that "he has never before received so much prepub buzz as he has for The House of Broken Angels. Kirch quoted him as saying that "It seems to be striking a nerve," he says. "I wasn't really trying to be subversive, but I was trying to be subversive at the same time. I'm always trying to, using literature, subvert people's responses."

Bibliography

=Poetry=

{{cite book|title=The Fever of Being|publisher=West End Press|year=1994|isbn=978-0-931122-78-1}}
{{cite book|title=Ghost Sickness|publisher=Cinco Puntos Press|year=1997|isbn=978-0-938317-30-2}}
{{cite book |author=Luis Alberto Urrea |author-mask=0|title=Vatos|publisher=Cinco Puntos Press|others=José Galvez, Josae Galvez (photog.)|year=2000|isbn=978-0-938317-52-4}}
{{cite journal|date=Spring 2007|title=Walking Backwards in the Dark|url=http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2007/spring/urrea-walking-backwards/|journal=Virginia Quarterly Review}}
Tijuana Book of the Dead. Soft Skull Press. 2015. {{ISBN|978-1619024823}}

=Short stories=

{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/sixkindsofskycol0000urre|url-access=registration|quote=Luis Alberto Urrea.|title=Six Kinds of Sky|publisher=Cinco Puntos Press|year=2002|isbn=978-0-938317-63-0}}
The Water Museum. Little, Brown and Company. 2015. {{ISBN|978-0316334372}}

=Novels=

{{cite book|title=In Search of Snow|publisher=University of Arizona Press|year=1994|isbn=978-0-8165-2015-2}}
{{cite book|title=The Hummingbird's Daughter|publisher=Little, Brown and Company|year=2005|isbn=978-0-316-74546-8|url=https://archive.org/details/hummingbirdsdaug00urre}}
{{cite book|title=Into the Beautiful North|publisher=Little, Brown and Company|year=2009|isbn=978-0-316-02527-0}}
{{cite book|title=Queen of America|publisher=Little, Brown and Company|year=2011|isbn=978-0-316-15486-4}}
{{cite book |title=The House of Broken Angels |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |isbn=978-0-316-15488-8 |date=March 2018}}
{{cite book |title=Good Night, Irene: A Novel |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |isbn=978-0-316-265850 |date=May 2023}}

=Memoirs=

{{cite book|title=Wandering Time: Western Notebooks|publisher=University of Arizona Press|year=1999|isbn=978-0-8165-1866-1}}
{{cite book|title=Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life|url=https://archive.org/details/nobodyssonnotesf00urre|url-access=registration|publisher=University of Arizona Press|year=1998|isbn=978-0-8165-2270-5}}

=Non-fiction=

{{cite book|author=Luis Alberto Urrea |author-mask=0|title=Across the wire: life and hard times on the Mexican border|publisher=Anchor Books|others=John Lueders-Booth (photog.)|year=1993|isbn=978-0-385-42530-8}}
{{cite book|title=By the Lake of Sleeping Children|publisher=Anchor Books|year=1996|isbn=978-0-385-48419-0|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/bylakeofsleeping0000urre}}
{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rXQ4AQAAQBAJ&q=The+Devil%27s+Highway|title=The Devil's Highway|publisher=Little, Brown and Company|year=2004|isbn=978-0-316-74671-7}}

=Interviews=

{{cite web |url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=179395 |title=On Standing at Neruda's Tomb: An interview with Martín Espada|year=2006 |work=Poetry Foundation}}

References

External links

[http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/ksut/.artsmain/article/14/237/1498678/Happenings.on.KSUT/Four.Corners:.One.Book.author.Luis.Alberto.Urrea/ "Four Corners: One Book author Luis Alberto Urrea", Kinsee Morlan, KSUT, 2009]
{{cite journal |url=http://www.waterbridgereview.org/092006/cnv_urrea.php |title=Conversations |journal=Waterbridge Review |date=September 2006 |access-date=2009-05-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090303090233/http://www.waterbridgereview.org/092006/cnv_urrea.php |archive-date=2009-03-03 |url-status=dead }}
[http://marksarvas.blogs.com/elegvar/2005/06/guest_interview.html Daniel Olivas interviews Luis Alberto Urrea for The Elegant Variation (2005)]
{{C-SPAN|84969}}
[https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_16-804xg9fk0h “Focus 580; The Hummingbirds Daughter,”] 2005-08-23, WILL Illinois Public Media, American Archive of Public Broadcasting

Category:20th-century American novelists

Category:21st-century American novelists

Category:American male novelists

Category:20th-century American poets

Category:American memoirists

Category:American writers of Mexican descent

Category:Mexican emigrants to the United States

Category:University of Louisiana at Lafayette faculty

Category:University of Illinois Chicago faculty

Category:University of California, San Diego alumni

Category:University of Colorado alumni

Category:Writers from Tijuana