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Luis Alberto Urrea

Mexico (b.1955)

Luis Alberto Urrea is the author of the widely acclaimed novel The Hummingbird's Daughter and a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for nonfiction for The Devil's Highway. Inducted into the Latino Literature Hall of Fame, Urrea was born in Tijuana, Mexico, to a Mexican father and an American mother.

Genres: Historical, Literary Fiction

Series

Hummingbird's Daughter
1. The Hummingbird's Daughter (2005)
2. Queen of America (2011)

Non fiction series

Border Trilogy
   1. Across the Wire (1993)
   2. By the Lake of Sleeping Children (1996)
   3. Nobody's Son (1998)

Novels

   In Search of Snow (1994)
   Into the Beautiful North (2009)
   Mr. Mendoza's Paintbrush (2010)
   The House of Broken Angels (2018)
   Fourteen Days (2023) (with others)
   Good Night, Irene (2023)

Collections

   The Fever of Being (poems) (1994)
   Ghost Sickness (poems) (1997)
   Vatos (poems) (2000)
   Six Kinds of Sky (2002)
   Tijuana Book of the Dead (poems) (2015)
   The Water Museum (2015)

Non fiction

Wandering Time (1999)
The Devils Highway (2004)

Omnibus editions

Bless Me, Ultima / Tortuga / Alburquerque (2022) (with Rudolfo Anaya)

Awards

PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction Best Book nominee (2016) : The Water Museum

Luis Alberto Urrea recommends

My Name Is Iris (2023)
Brando Skyhorse
"Any new book by Brando Skyhorse is a cause for celebration. My Name Is Iris is rich and full of heart and emotion. This is the work of a lifetime of experience, and you will not forget his characters."

A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness (2023)
Jai Chakrabarti
"Jai Chakrabarti is an elegant writer with clarity of vision and greatness of heart. His new book expands the world in some mysterious way."

Angeline (2023)
Anna Quinn
"Sister Angeline is a character for the ages. Anna Quinn has created a deeply moving portrait of a great soul at the precipice of faith and duty and the shadows of a wrenching past. It's beautiful, and like all true beauty, the book is haunting, if not haunted."

On the Rooftop (2022)
Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
"In all of her work, Margaret Wilkerson Sexton invites us into the most intimate spaces of remarkable families during remarkable times. In this stellar novel, she takes us deeply into the dynamics of mothers and daughters, their individual-and collective-dreams and struggles. The harmonies of The Salvations are the literal soul music of this neighborhood in San Francisco during the turbulent '50s and I will never look up at another rooftop again, without imagining three sisters reaching for their stars."

The Family Izquierdo (2022)
Rubén Degollado
"Ruben Degollado has written an open-hearted work of witness, love, and triumph. We have come far. And this brave novel reminds us of where we have to go. Anyone with a family will find themselves in these pages."

Book of Extraordinary Tragedies (2022)
Joe Meno
"I don't know how Joe Meno does it - if I did know, I'd copy him. This book has such velocity that it generates wind, yet it is meditative and steeped in love, music, and human connection. It's stunning."

Mercury Pictures Presents (2022)
Anthony Marra
"Achingly beautiful . . . You laugh, then you sigh, then you weep. Extraordinary."

The Many Daughters of Afong Moy (2022)
Jamie Ford
"Jamie Ford's army of readers will be thrilled by this amazing new novel, The Many Daughters of Afong Moy, which promises to take them to places they have not been to before. At our house, we enjoyed many nights reading later and later into the evening, and discussing its wonders and surprises."

Calling for a Blanket Dance (2022)
Oscar Hokeah
"Oscar Hokeah is the real deal. A new voice with ancient music."

More Than You'll Ever Know (2022)
Katie Gutierrez
"It's difficult to believe that this masterful novel is a first book. Katie Gutierrez handles its dangerous turns like a Formula One driver. That elegance, darkness, even fear are deftly intertwined in the story make it a wonderful read. More books, please."

Ocean State (2022)
Stewart O'Nan
"Stewart O'Nan is out to break your heart in the most beautiful way. He is writing with his full power unleashed. This book is a classic."

Mecca (2022)
Susan Straight
"Mecca blows out of the California mountains and deserts with the scorching power of the Santa Ana fire winds. Susan Straight never lags in her deft portrait of the heart of the drylands of Southern California, far from beaches and Hollywood. This book speeds down the freeway like the motorcycles of her Highway Patrolman hero."

The President and the Frog (2021)
Carolina De Robertis
"Carolina De Robertis casts a bright light with all her work. I was delighted to open this book and very sad to close it. Her voice is what we need to bring us back to wholeness."

The Sweetness of Water (2021)
Nathan Harris
"To open Nathan Harris’s first novel is to enter a trance. I can’t think of any other book out there quite like it. The richness of his language and the exquisite details of the lives he creates produce a kind of waking dream, equally lyrical and threatening."

Infinite Country (2021)
Patricia Engel
"Patricia Engel has an elegant voice. But that finesse has a way of making the shocks and surprises in her fiction more stunning. Infinite Country is her most satisfying work. You won't be sorry. Well, you will be sorry when it ends."

The Five Wounds (2021)
Kirstin Valdez Quade
"In this cruel and divisive era, Kirstin Valdez Quade has brought healing and regeneration with The Five Wounds. It is bracing and wise, and it breaks us in the best ways. Then builds us back up again. It should find many grateful readers."

Jubilee (2020)
Jennifer Givhan
"I never thought I'd see the Great Mexicali Novel. Jennifer Givhan teaches us new things about borders, including the shadowy borders of the mind. Intense."

Afterlife (2020)
Julia Alvarez
"A powerful testament of witness and humanity written with audacity and authority."

Dodging and Burning (2018)
John Copenhaver
"I'm a big fan of John Copenhaver's elegant work. He's a sophisticated stylist who can break your heart right before he turns devilish. Highly recommended."

The Which Way Tree (2018)
Elizabeth Crook
"Elizabeth Crook has created a book of marvels. Its comedy is steeped in the hardscrabble tragedies of a wilder old America. You will even catch an echo of Twain's wit in the picaresque narration."

Gossip of the Starlings (2008)
Nina de Gramont
"Exquisite. Nina de Gramont's prose seems wrought from gold filaments. The story lifts off the page and hovers around you as you read. Real people and real feelings in a performance that is full-bodied and--more impressively--full of real soul. I won't forget this book."

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