Sergio Troncoso
Sergio Troncoso is the author of NOBODY'S PILGRIMS, A PECULIAR KIND OF IMMIGRANT'S SON, THE LAST TORTILLA AND OTHER STORIES, CROSSING BORDERS: PERSONAL ESSAYS, THE NATURE OF TRUTH and FROM THIS WICKED PATCH OF DUST; and as editor, NEPANTLA FAMILIAS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF MEXICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE ON FAMILIES IN BETWEEN WORLDS and OUR LOST BORDER: ESSAYS ON LIFE AMID THE NARCO-VIOLENCE.
He often writes about the United States-Mexico border, working-class immigrants, families and fatherhood, crossing cultural, psychological, and philosophical borders, and the border beyond the border.
Troncoso teaches at the Yale Writers’ Workshop in New Haven, Connecticut. A past president of the Texas Institute of Letters, he has also served as a judge for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, New Letters Literary Awards in the Essay category, and the Jesse H. Jones Fellowship for Writers. His work has appeared in Pleiades, Texas Highways, CNN Opinion, Houston Chronicle, Other Voices, New Letters, Yale Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Texas Monthly.
The son of Mexican immigrants, Troncoso was born and grew up on the east side of El Paso, Texas in rural Ysleta. During their first years in Texas, his family lived with kerosene lamps and stoves and an outhouse in the backyard. He attended Ysleta High School and became editor of the school newspaper. (His paternal grandfather was Santiago Troncoso, editor and publisher of El Día, the first daily newspaper in Juárez, Mexico.)
He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and received two graduate degrees in international relations and philosophy from Yale University.
A Fulbright scholar, Troncoso was inducted into the Hispanic Scholarship Fund’s Alumni Hall of Fame, Texas Institute of Letters, and Texas Literary Hall of Fame. He is also a member of PEN America, a writers’ organization protecting free expression and celebrating literature, and the Authors Guild, the nation’s oldest and largest professional organization of writers. He was named a Fellow of the Texas Institute of Letters, the first Mexican American writer to receive this distinction.
Among the numerous literary awards Troncoso has won are the Kay Cattarulla Award for Best Short Story, Premio Aztlan Literary Prize, Gold Medal for Best Novel-Adventure or Drama from International Latino Book Awards, Bronze Award for Anthologies from Independent Publisher Book Awards, Gold Medal for Best Collection of Short Stories from International Latino Book Awards, Southwest Book Award, Bronze Award for Essays from ForeWord Reviews, and the Silver Award for Multicultural Adult Fiction from ForeWord Reviews.
The El Paso City Council voted unanimously to rename the public library branch in Ysleta as the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library. Later the author established the annual Troncoso Reading Prizes for middle school and high school students in Ysleta.
His literary papers are archived at The Wittliff Collections in San Marcos, Texas.
He often writes about the United States-Mexico border, working-class immigrants, families and fatherhood, crossing cultural, psychological, and philosophical borders, and the border beyond the border.
Troncoso teaches at the Yale Writers’ Workshop in New Haven, Connecticut. A past president of the Texas Institute of Letters, he has also served as a judge for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, New Letters Literary Awards in the Essay category, and the Jesse H. Jones Fellowship for Writers. His work has appeared in Pleiades, Texas Highways, CNN Opinion, Houston Chronicle, Other Voices, New Letters, Yale Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Texas Monthly.
The son of Mexican immigrants, Troncoso was born and grew up on the east side of El Paso, Texas in rural Ysleta. During their first years in Texas, his family lived with kerosene lamps and stoves and an outhouse in the backyard. He attended Ysleta High School and became editor of the school newspaper. (His paternal grandfather was Santiago Troncoso, editor and publisher of El Día, the first daily newspaper in Juárez, Mexico.)
He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and received two graduate degrees in international relations and philosophy from Yale University.
A Fulbright scholar, Troncoso was inducted into the Hispanic Scholarship Fund’s Alumni Hall of Fame, Texas Institute of Letters, and Texas Literary Hall of Fame. He is also a member of PEN America, a writers’ organization protecting free expression and celebrating literature, and the Authors Guild, the nation’s oldest and largest professional organization of writers. He was named a Fellow of the Texas Institute of Letters, the first Mexican American writer to receive this distinction.
Among the numerous literary awards Troncoso has won are the Kay Cattarulla Award for Best Short Story, Premio Aztlan Literary Prize, Gold Medal for Best Novel-Adventure or Drama from International Latino Book Awards, Bronze Award for Anthologies from Independent Publisher Book Awards, Gold Medal for Best Collection of Short Stories from International Latino Book Awards, Southwest Book Award, Bronze Award for Essays from ForeWord Reviews, and the Silver Award for Multicultural Adult Fiction from ForeWord Reviews.
The El Paso City Council voted unanimously to rename the public library branch in Ysleta as the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library. Later the author established the annual Troncoso Reading Prizes for middle school and high school students in Ysleta.
His literary papers are archived at The Wittliff Collections in San Marcos, Texas.
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"A deeply meaningful collection that navigates important nuances of identity." ---Kirkus Reviews, starred review
The border goes beyond the border in a story about who belongs in the United States and how finding your place in this world is about finding the right person to be with you. A literary novel with the propulsion of a thriller, Nobody's Pilgrims both offers and questions the possibility of escape in America -- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn meets No Country for Old Men. (Lee & Low Books: Cinco Puntos Press, 2022)
“Troncoso delivers a surprisingly fast-paced, character-driven story....A sublime, diverse cast drives this tale of looking for a safe, welcoming home.”
---Kirkus Reviews
Teaching Documents by Sergio Troncoso
“Troncoso delivers a surprisingly fast-paced, character-driven story. For example, readers watch Turi evolve from a meek 16-year-old loner to a capable young man who genuinely cares for his ‘semi-friend’ Arnulfo. At the same time, the road trip keeps the tightly plotted narrative moving across the country, all while villains (there are quite a few) close in. The cast also shines, including one criminal henchman harboring a tender affection for his ‘hulking giant’ of a partner. The author rounds out his memorable tale by touching on contemporary topical issues, like prejudices against caramel skin and undocumented immigrants. A sublime, diverse cast drives this tale of looking for a safe, welcoming home.”
---Kirkus Reviews
Initially, "outsider status" was thrust upon him; later, he adopted it willingly, writing about the Southwest and Chicanos in an effort to communicate who he was and where he came from to those unfamiliar with his childhood world. He wrote to maintain his ties to his parents and his abuelita, and to fight against the elitism he experienced at an Ivy League school. "I was torn," he writes, "between the people I loved at home and the ideas I devoured away from home."
Troncoso writes to preserve his connections to the past, but he puts pen to paper just as much for the future. In his three-part essay entitled "Letter to My Young Sons," he documents the terror of his wife's breast cancer diagnosis and the ups and downs of her surgery and treatment. Other essays convey the joys and frustrations of fatherhood, his uneasy relationship with his elderly father and the impact his wife's Jewish heritage and religion have on his Mexican-American identity.
Crossing Borders: Personal Essays reveals a writer, father and husband who has crossed linguistic, cultural and intellectual borders to provoke debate about contemporary Mexican-American identity. Challenging assumptions about literature, the role of writers in America, fatherhood and family, these essays bridge the chasm between the poverty of the border region and the highest echelons of success in America. Troncoso writes with the deepest faith in humanity about sacrifice, commitment and honesty.
Pilar and Cuauhtemoc Martinez and their four children begin life in the shantytown of Ysleta on the United States-Mexico border. They struggle to stay together despite cultural clashes, different religions, and politics after September 11, 2001. Daughter Julieta is disenchanted with Catholicism and converts to Islam. Youngest son Ismael, always the bookworm, is accepted to Harvard but feels out of place in the Northeast where he meets and marries a Jewish woman. Will their shared history and once-common dreams be enough to hold together a family from Ysleta, this wicked patch of dust?
"A deeply meaningful collection that navigates important nuances of identity." ---Kirkus Reviews, starred review
The border goes beyond the border in a story about who belongs in the United States and how finding your place in this world is about finding the right person to be with you. A literary novel with the propulsion of a thriller, Nobody's Pilgrims both offers and questions the possibility of escape in America -- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn meets No Country for Old Men. (Lee & Low Books: Cinco Puntos Press, 2022)
“Troncoso delivers a surprisingly fast-paced, character-driven story....A sublime, diverse cast drives this tale of looking for a safe, welcoming home.”
---Kirkus Reviews
“Troncoso delivers a surprisingly fast-paced, character-driven story. For example, readers watch Turi evolve from a meek 16-year-old loner to a capable young man who genuinely cares for his ‘semi-friend’ Arnulfo. At the same time, the road trip keeps the tightly plotted narrative moving across the country, all while villains (there are quite a few) close in. The cast also shines, including one criminal henchman harboring a tender affection for his ‘hulking giant’ of a partner. The author rounds out his memorable tale by touching on contemporary topical issues, like prejudices against caramel skin and undocumented immigrants. A sublime, diverse cast drives this tale of looking for a safe, welcoming home.”
---Kirkus Reviews
Initially, "outsider status" was thrust upon him; later, he adopted it willingly, writing about the Southwest and Chicanos in an effort to communicate who he was and where he came from to those unfamiliar with his childhood world. He wrote to maintain his ties to his parents and his abuelita, and to fight against the elitism he experienced at an Ivy League school. "I was torn," he writes, "between the people I loved at home and the ideas I devoured away from home."
Troncoso writes to preserve his connections to the past, but he puts pen to paper just as much for the future. In his three-part essay entitled "Letter to My Young Sons," he documents the terror of his wife's breast cancer diagnosis and the ups and downs of her surgery and treatment. Other essays convey the joys and frustrations of fatherhood, his uneasy relationship with his elderly father and the impact his wife's Jewish heritage and religion have on his Mexican-American identity.
Crossing Borders: Personal Essays reveals a writer, father and husband who has crossed linguistic, cultural and intellectual borders to provoke debate about contemporary Mexican-American identity. Challenging assumptions about literature, the role of writers in America, fatherhood and family, these essays bridge the chasm between the poverty of the border region and the highest echelons of success in America. Troncoso writes with the deepest faith in humanity about sacrifice, commitment and honesty.
Pilar and Cuauhtemoc Martinez and their four children begin life in the shantytown of Ysleta on the United States-Mexico border. They struggle to stay together despite cultural clashes, different religions, and politics after September 11, 2001. Daughter Julieta is disenchanted with Catholicism and converts to Islam. Youngest son Ismael, always the bookworm, is accepted to Harvard but feels out of place in the Northeast where he meets and marries a Jewish woman. Will their shared history and once-common dreams be enough to hold together a family from Ysleta, this wicked patch of dust?
"The castoffs and castaways of Nobody's Pilgrims hit the road in search of the American Dream, a long shot made longer by the pack of human devils hot on their trail. In this superb novel, Sergio Troncoso gives us a fresh take not only on the great American road trip, but on the American Dream itself in all its glorious and increasingly fragile promise. The propulsive force of this novel, and the destination it ultimately brings us to, left me wanting more, and yet feeling completely satisfied. As only the best novels do."
--Ben Fountain, PEN/Hemingway award-winning author of Brief Encounters with Che Guevara
"In a world marked by cruelty, corruption, bigotry and disease, Troncoso shows us there's still room for love. With his finely honed prose style, he takes us on a journey across the country with three young hungry teens whose dreams are the only lifelines they have left. A powerful, compelling read."
--Octavio Solis, author of Retablos: Stories From a Life Lived Along the Border
"Eloquent, bold and terrifying, Nobody's Pilgrims is a fresh new take on the ancient themes of innocence pursued by evil, and of the young finding their way through a chaotic and uncertain world. Turi, Arnulfo and Molly are original and uniquely endearing, and they're a pleasure to travel with, even on such a frightening journey."
--Elizabeth Crook, author of Monday, Monday
"Nobody's Pilgrims offers a stark vision of a country whose social ills have sullied the path to the pursuit of happiness. Yet its intrepid protagonists Turi and Molly persevere, charting their own map and adapting, like generations of dreamers, immigrants, and adventurers before them, to the latest hurdles of our troubled world. Sergio Troncoso has given us a timely dystopian tale heavy with anguish but invigorated by resilience."
--Rigoberto González, author of Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa
Edited by award-winning writer and scholar Sergio Troncoso, this anthology includes works from familiar and acclaimed voices such as David Dorado Romo, Sandra Cisneros, Alex Espinoza, Reyna Grande, and Francisco Cantú, as well as from important new voices, such as Stephanie Li, David Dominguez, and ire’ne lara silva. These are writers who open and expose the in-between places: through or at borders; among the past, present, and future; from tradition to innovation; between languages; in gender; about the wounds of the past and the victories of the present; of life and death.
Sergio Troncoso, David Dorado Romo, Reyna Grande, Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Francisco Cantú, Rigoberto González, Alex Espinoza, Domingo Martinez, Oscar Cásares, Lorraine M. López, David Dominguez, Stephanie Li, Sheryl Luna, José Antonio Rodríguez, Deborah Paredez, Octavio Quintanilla, Sandra Cisneros, Diana Marie Delgado, Diana López, Severo Perez, Octavio Solis, ire'ne lara silva, Rubén Degollado, Helena María Viramontes, Daniel Chacón, Matt Mendez.
In their introduction, editors Sarah Cortez and Sergio Troncoso write that this anthology was “born of a vision to bear witness to how this violence has shattered life on the border, to remember the past, but also to point to the possibilities of a better future.” The personal essays in this collection humanize the news stories and are a must-read for anyone interested in how this fragile way of life between two cultures, languages and countries has been undermined by the drug trade and the crime that accompanies it, with ramifications far beyond the border region.
Spanning four decades, this is a story of a family’s struggle to become American and yet not be pulled apart by a maelstrom of cultural forces. As a young adult, daughter Julieta is disenchanted with Catholicism and converts to Islam. Youngest son Ismael, always the bookworm, is accepted to Harvard but feels out of place in the Northeast, where he meets and marries a Jewish woman.
The other boys--Marcos and Francisco--toil in their father’s old apartment buildings, serving as cheap labor to fuel the family’s rise to the middle class. Over time, Francisco isolates himself in El Paso, while Marcos eventually leaves to become a teacher but then returns, struggling with a deep bitterness about his work and marriage. Through it all, Pilar clings to the idea of her family and tries to hold it together as her husband’s health begins to fail.
This backdrop is shaken to its core by the historic events of 2001 in New York City, which send shockwaves through this newly American family. Bitter conflicts erupt between siblings, and the physical and cultural spaces between them threaten to tear them apart. Will their shared history and once-shared dreams be enough to hold together a family from Ysleta, this wicked patch of dust?
Initially, “outsider status” was thrust upon him; later, he adopted it willingly, writing about the Southwest and Chicanos in an effort to communicate who he was and where he came from to those unfamiliar with his childhood world. He wrote to maintain his ties to his parents and his abuelita, and to fight against the elitism he experienced at an Ivy League school. “I was torn,” he writes, “between the people I loved at home and the ideas I devoured away from home.”
Troncoso writes to preserve his connections to the past, but he puts pen to paper just as much for the future. In his three-part essay entitled “Letter to My Young Sons,” he documents the terror of his wife’s breast cancer diagnosis and the ups and downs of her surgery and treatment. Other essays convey the joys and frustrations of fatherhood, his uneasy relationship with his elderly father, and the impact his wife’s Jewish heritage and religion have on his Mexican-American identity.
Crossing Borders: Personal Essays reveals a writer, father and husband who has crossed linguistic, cultural and intellectual borders to provoke debate about contemporary Mexican-American identity. Challenging assumptions about literature, the role of writers in America, fatherhood and family, these essays bridge the chasm between the poverty of the border region and the highest echelons of success in America. Troncoso writes with the deepest faith in humanity about sacrifice, commitment and honesty.