What an honor to have one of the premier Mexican-American writers and educators here from Texas to read for us! We thank board member, Sergio Troncoso (also an award-winning Mexican-American writer), for arranging the visit and introducing him.
Rolando Hinojosa is best known for the "Klail City Death Trip" series, a collection of short novels following generations of Anglos and Mexicans in the fictional Rio Grande Valley town of Klail City, Texas. The New York Times writes: "Although Hinojosa's sharp eye and accurate ear capture a place, its people and time in a masterly way, his work goes far beyond regionalism. He is a writer for all readers."
Hinojosa won the national award for Chicano literature, Premio Quinto Sol, for the first novel in this series, Estampas del Valle." For Klail City y sus alrededores, he won the highest award for the novel in Latin America, the 1976 Premio Casas de las Americas. His most recent novel, Ask a Policeman (1998), explores family betrayals in the drug trade on the Mexican-American border.
His work has also won him the award for Best Writing in the Southwest (1981), a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Texas Institute of Letters (1998), and the Alumni Achievement Award from the University of Illinois at Urbana (1998), where he had earned his doctorate in 1969. Rolando Hinojosa's work has been translated into French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish.
He has been the Ellen Clayton Garwood Professor in the English Department at the University of Texas (Austin) since 1985. In 1995 he was honored as Outstanding Latino Faculty by the Hispanic caucus of the American Association for Higher Education.
Help us give this very distinguished guest a warm New York welcome!
Suggested Donation: $5 ($3 for members)
This series made possible in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Westchester Arts Council with funds from Westchester County Government, corporations and individuals and with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. Additional funding has been provided by The Bydale Foundation.