Famous Hispanic Authors

Diana J. Gabaldon, born January 11, 1952, is an American author. She wrote the Outlander series. Her books mix genres: historical fiction, romance, mystery, adventure, and science fiction/fantasy. Starz aired a television version of the Outlander novels in 2014.

Gary Anthony Soto, born April 12, 1952, is an American poet, novelist, and memoirist.

Sandra Cisneros, born December 20, 1954, is an American writer. Her first novel is The House on Mango Street (1984). She also wrote the short story collection Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991). Cisneros explores literary forms and subject positions. She credits growing up in a setting of cultural mixing and money gaps for the stories she tells. She received many awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and one of 25 new Ford Foundation awards.

Francisco Xavier Alarcón (February 21, 1954 – January 15, 2016) was a Chicano poet and educator. He gained recognition writing mostly in Spanish within the United States. Translators adapted his poems into Irish and Swedish. Alarcón appeared at public schools to inspire young people to write poetry, believing children are 'natural poets.'

Jimmy Santiago Baca was born January 2, 1952, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is a Chicano-American poet and writer.

Juan Felipe Herrera, born December 27, 1948, is a poet, performer, writer, cartoonist, teacher, and activist. Herrera served as the 21st United States Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017. His background as the child of migrant farmers shaped his work. His children's book, Calling the Doves, won the Ezra Jack Keats Book Award in 1997. Herrera drove community and art since the mid-1970s, when he directed the Centro Cultural de la Raza, a water tank in Balboa Park converted into an arts space.

Luis Alberto Urrea, born August 20, 1955, in Tijuana, Mexico, is a Mexican American poet, novelist, and essayist.

Rudolfo Anaya, born October 30, 1937, is an American author. His 1972 novel Bless Me, Ultima is well known. Anaya is one of the founders of the contemporary Chicano literature canon.

Pat Mora, born January 19, 1942, in El Paso, Texas, writes books for adults, teens, and children. Her grandparents moved to El Paso from northern Mexico. She graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso. North Carolina State University and SUNY Buffalo gave her Honorary Doctorates. She is an Honorary Member of the American Library Association. Mora advocates for literacy. In 1996, she started Children's Day and Book Day in Spanish: El día de los niños, El día de los libros, now celebrated nationwide on April 30th.

Richard Rodriguez, born July 31, 1944, is an American writer. He became famous for *Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez* (1982), a story about his intellectual growth.

Ana Castillo, born June 15, 1953, is a Chicana novelist, poet, short story writer, essayist, editor, playwright, translator, and independent scholar. Castillo is considered a leading voice in Chicana experience. She uses an experimental style as a Latina novelist. Her work offers sharp, passionate socio-political comments based on oral and literary traditions. Castillo explores race and gender issues throughout her writing. Her novel *Sapogonia* was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She edits *La Tolteca*, an arts and

Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa (September 26, 1942 – May 15, 2004) studied Chicana cultural theory, feminist theory, and queer theory. She based her book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, loosely on her life on the Mexico–Texas border. Anzaldúa included her life experiences of social and cultural marginalization in that work. She also created theories about the marginal, in-between, and mixed cultures that form along borders.

Cherríe Moraga, born September 25, 1952, is a Chicana writer, feminist activist, poet, essayist, and playwright. Moraga teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara's English Department. Moraga also founded La Red Xicana Indígena, a group of Xicanas fighting for education, culture rights, and Indigenous Rights.

Rigoberto González was born in 1970. He writes and reviews books. González edits and authors poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and bilingual children's books. He identifies as a gay Chicano in his writing. His latest project is The Book of Ruin, a poetry collection. His memoir, What Drowns the Flowers in Your Mouth: A Memoir of Brotherhood, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography. The Publishing Triangle gave him the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2015.

John Trudell was a Native American activist, poet, and musician. He appeared in nearly a dozen films during the 90s and 2000s. Trudell was born in Omaha and grew up on the Santee Sioux Reservation in Nebraska. As a young man, Trudell absorbed the culture and history of Native Americans. This knowledge helped him later become a political activist. Before becoming political, Trudell joined the United States Navy in 1963. He served his country for four years. Trudell also served in Vietnam, which was one of the first times military men were stationed there.

Michael Dana Gioia, born December 24, 1950, is an American poet and writer. Gioia wrote for fifteen years while working for General Foods Corporation, writing at night. After his 1991 essay "Can Poetry Matter?" in The Atlantic gained global attention, Gioia left business to write full-time. Gioia chaired the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) from 2003 to 2009. Gioia published five poetry books and three volumes of literary criticism. He also published opera libretti, song cycles, translations, and over two dozen literary anthologies.

Guillermo Gómez-Peña is a Chicano performance artist, writer, activist, and educator. Gómez-Peña makes work across many media: performance art, experimental radio, video, photography, and installation art. His ten books include essays, experimental poetry, performance scripts, and chronicles in English, Spanish, and Spanglish. He founded the art collective Border Arts Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo and directed the performance art troupe La Pocha Nostra. Gómez-Peña has shaped cultural debates for almost 30 years by staging important performance art.

Alberto Baltazar Urista Heredia, born August 8, 1947, is the Chicano poet and activist known as Alurista.

Lorna Dee Cervantes, born August 6, 1954, is an award-winning Chicana poet and activist. She is considered one of the greatest figures in Chicano poetry. Alurista described her as "probably the best Chicana poet active today."

Luis Javier Rodriguez, born 1954, is an American poet, novelist, journalist, critic, and columnist. Rodriguez served as the 2014 Los Angeles Poet Laureate. Rodriguez is a major figure in contemporary Chicano literature and won many awards for his work. His books, such as Always Running: La Vida Loca and Gang Days in L.A., received the Carl Sandburg Literary Award. Controversy arose when school reading lists in California, Illinois, Michigan, and Texas included these books because of their open descriptions of gang life. Rodriguez also founded or co-founded...

Danzy Senna writes novels and essays. Her first novel, Caucasia (1998), received multiple translations and several awards. A Whiting Award winner, Senna wrote five books and many essays about gender, race, and motherhood. Her latest work is the novel New People (2017). Publications include The New Yorker, Vogue, and The New York Times. She teaches English at the University of Southern California.

Tomás Rivera (December 22, 1935 – May 16, 1984) wrote as a Chicano author, poet, and educator. He was born in Texas to migrant farm workers and worked in the fields as a boy. Rivera gained social mobility through education. He earned a degree at Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State University) and a PhD from the University of Oklahoma. Rivera believed strongly in education for Mexican-Americans. Rivera is best known for his 1971 Faulknerian stream-of-consciousness novella, "y no se lo tragó la."

Victor Villaseñor is a Mexican-American writer. His national bestseller is Rain of Gold. American schools teach Villaseñor's works. He wrote Thirteen Senses: A Memoir (2001), which followed Rain of Gold. His book Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004) details his life. Awards and endorsements went to the author. This included an appointment to the founding Steinbeck Chair at Hartnell College and the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas from February 2003 to March 2004.

Rolando Hinojosa, born 1929, is an American novelist, essayist, and poet. He teaches English at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is the Ellen Clayton Garwood professor.

Julian Nava is an American educator and diplomat. He was born on June 19, 1927.

José Montoya (May 28, 1932 – September 25, 2013) was a poet and artist from Sacramento, California. He became one of the most influential Chicano bilingual poets. He published many well-known poems in anthologies and magazines. Montoya served as Sacramento's poet laureate. He was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and grew up in the San Joaquin Valley in California with his brother, Malaquias Montoya. Montoya and his family worked as migrant farm workers; Montoya started helping in the fields at age nine. This experience made Montoya decide that "farm work would not be his destiny." His mother was an art.

Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales (June 18, 1928 – April 12, 2005) was a Mexican American boxer, poet, and political activist. Gonzales called the first Chicano youth conference in March 1969. Many future Chicano activists and artists attended that conference. The conference also promoted the Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, a manifesto demanding self-determination for Chicanos. Gonzales was an early figure in the movement for the equal rights of Mexican Americans.

José Antonio Villarreal (July 30, 1924 – January 13, 2010) wrote as a Chicano novelist. Villarreal was born in 1924 in Los Angeles, California, to migrant Mexican farmworkers. Villarreal's father fought Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution, just like Juan Manuel Rubio in Pocho. He served four years in the Navy before attending the University of California at Berkeley in 1950.

Carlos Cumpián, a Chicano writer, examines American realities missing from mainstream poetry. He grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and now has deep roots in the Midwest. The Chicago Public Library named Cumpián among its "Top Ten" requested poets. Small press magazines and anthologies published his poetry. Cumpián taught at Columbia College Chicago and ran workshops on poetry and small press work. His books include "14 Abriles: Poems" (March Abrazo Press), Latino Rainbow (Children's Press/Scholastic Books), Armadillo Charm (Tia Chucha Press), and Co.

Luis Omar Salinas is a leading Chicano poet. He published well-received collections like the Crazy Gypsy, described as "a classic of contemporary and Chicano poetry," I Go Dreaming Serenades, and Afternoon of The Unreal. Columbia Magazine awarded Salinas the Stanley Kunitz award for one poem, plus a General Electric Foundation Award. Many U.S. Hispanic literature texts cite Salinas as "one of the founding fathers of Chicano poetry in America," and many of his poems appear in U.S. Hispanic literature.

Paul Martínez Pompa is a Latino poet. He wrote My Kill Adore Him (University of Notre Dame Press, 2009). Martín Espada selected his work for the 2008 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. He also published the chapbook Pepper Spray (Momotombo Press, 2006). Anthologies like Telling Tongues and The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry feature his poetry and prose. Martínez Pompa earned degrees from the University of Chicago and Indiana University. He edited poetry for Indiana Review while studying. Currently, Martínez Pompa teaches at Triton College in River Grove, Illinois.

Helena Maria Viramontes is an American fiction writer and English professor. Her two novels, Under the Feet of Jesus and Their Dogs Came With Them, establish her status. She holds a place among the most important figures in the early Chicano literature canon.

María Antonieta Collins Flores is a Mexican journalist, TV host, and best-selling author. She won four Emmy Awards and the Edward Murrow Award. Flores wrote seven books.

Ingrid Julia Chavez works as an American singer-songwriter, poet, actress, and visual artist.

Daniel Olivas, born April 8, 1959 in Los Angeles, California, is a United States author and attorney.

María Amparo Ruiz de Burton became the first female Mexican-American author to write in English. She published two books, Who Would Have Thought It? and The Squatter and the Don, plus one play, Don Quixote de la Mancha: A Comedy in Five Acts: Taken From Cervantes' Novel of That Name.

Oscar "Zeta" Acosta Fierro (April 8, 1935 – disappeared 1974) was an American attorney, politician, novelist, and activist in the Chicano Movement. He wrote novels like *Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo* (1972) and *The Revolt of the Cockroach People* (1973). Acosta befriended American author Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson called Acosta a heavyweight Samoan attorney, Dr. Gonzo, in *Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas*. Acosta vanished in 1974 during a trip in Mazatlán, Mexico, and remains presumed dead.

José Luis Montalvo lived from September 9, 1946, to August 15, 1994. He worked as a Chicano writer, poet, and community activist.

Luis A. López is an American poet and Filmmaker from San Jose, California. He won many writing awards for his poetry and short stories. His book, *Warrior-Poet of the Fifth Sun*, is available now.

M. Miriam Herrera is an American author and poet. She teaches Introduction to Mexican Studies, Composition and Rhetoric, and Creative Writing at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.