Luis Alberto Urrea, 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for nonfiction and member of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame, is a prolific and acclaimed writer who uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss and triumph. Born in Tijuana, Mexico to a Mexican father and an American mother, Urrea has published extensively in all the major genres. The author of 13 books, Urrea has won numerous awards for his poetry, fiction and essays. Urrea lives with his family in Naperville, IL, where he is a professor of creative writing at the University of Illinois-Chicago.
Luis Alberto Urrea
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Barrio Walden
IMAGINE MY SHOCK. I was living in Massachusetts for the first time. Adjusting. The first time I saw snow falling past my Somerville apartment window, I told a woman on the Continue reading
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Ghosts of America
BY THE TIME we hit Nebraska, Colorado was already in flames. The cornfields were crunchy and blighted all around. Ahead, sections of the Platte had not yet vanished. Behind us, they Continue reading
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Life on the Mississippi
IN MY PART OF TOWN, there was no bookstore. We didn’t even have a library. Fishermen and sporty gents in porkpie hats shuffled around in the blaring silence of jukeboxes straining Continue reading
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Manifest Destiny
THIS IS HOW I CAME to be standing inside a sodbuster’s hut at the edge of the Badlands, breathing 1876 air and hearing Spanish in my mind . . . Maybe Continue reading
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Night Shift
BUD PICKED ME UP at ten-thirty every night. We had to be at the campground by eleven, to start our shift among the slumbering campers sweltering beside the Southern California bay Continue reading
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Working the Line
THE BORDER PATROL AGENT was driving us to supper in a desert border city. Since the publication of my book The Devil’s Highway, I have found myself in this situation with Continue reading