Luís Alberto Urrea
Luís Alberto Urrea, poet, fiction, and nonfiction writer, was born in Tijuana, Mexico, in 1955 and grew up in San Diego. Steeped in personal knowledge of US/Mexico border culture, he is best known for his numerous books and essays where he writes “with a tragic and beautiful intimacy that has no equal.” (Boston Globe) His autobiographical Nobody’s Son: Notes from an American Life won an American Book Award in 1999, and Across the Wire was a New York Times notable book of the year in 1993.
The son of an Anglo-American mother and a Mexican father, he says, “Home isn’t just a place, it is also a language.”
He has recently published a non-fiction book, The Devil’s Highway, a mournful tale of 26 men who tried to cross into the US from Mexico but chose the wrong time, place, and guide. Of his work Charles Bowden has said, “Read it and you will understand more than the governments and politicians. We are fortunate to have Luis Urrea, a man who loves his country. Both of them.”
Urrea teaches creative writing at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
Luís Alberto Urrea elsewhere on Lannan.org
Luís Alberto Urrea, 2004, (Literary: Awards, Fellowships, and Grants)Luís Alberto Urrea with Darrell Bourque, 2004, (Events)
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