Trib Nation's Printers Row Event Features Luis Urrea

By Staff in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 6, 2012 7:20PM

Non-fiction Pulitzer Prize finalist Luis Urrea is a renowned Mexican-American writer of all genres and one of the creative writing professors at the University of Illinois in Chicago. He was born to a Mexican father and an American mother—two cultural influences that have had a major impact on his writing. All of his 13 published works have been a reflection of his interest in culture clash, and all of them have been written with great depth of knowledge, whether intimately experienced or thoroughly researched.

Urrea received a nod as a Pulitzer finalist for his non-fiction work The Devil’s Highway, and he also has the Colorado Book Award for poetry, and an American Book Award for a memoir under his belt. In 2006 he won the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Prize for his novel The Hummingbird’s Daughter, a dense work of historical fiction, based upon the life of his great Aunt, Teresita Urrea (also known as Teresa Urrea or “The Saint of Cabora”). The follow up for Hummingbird’s Daughter, Queen of America, was released in November of 2011. It follows Teresita as her family relocates to Arizona after the rather nasty Tomochic rebellion.

On January 11 the man himself will be discussing and reading from Queen of America in The Tribune Tower at 6 p.m., as one of three authors appearing at Trib Nation's Events this winter. The tickets are $15 and can be purchased here. We definitely think he’ll have some words worth listening to, and it should be a book reading that’s worth the bucks!

— Maggie Hellwig