FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. –Award-winning Chicano author Sergio Troncoso will visit the University of Arkansas to share his stories and experience with students. He will present a talk and reading titled “New Perspectives on Latino Literature and the Role of the Writer: An Evening with Sergio Troncoso,” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 2, in Old Main’s Giffels Auditorium. A reception and book signing will follow this event, which is free and open to the public. 

Troncoso’s appearance is one of the highlights of an extensive slate of events in the university’s 2008 Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration.

“We are very grateful to our sponsors, and very excited about bringing to campus to share with the community an author of the vigor and quality of Mr. Sergio Troncoso,” said Steven Bell, director of the Latin American Studies Program in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. “He becomes the next in a now long line of major authors that the university has brought to campus annually for the Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration, including to date authors of the stature of Junot Diaz, Sandra Benitez, Rolando Hinojosa-Smith and Isabel Allende.”

Born and raised on the U.S.-Mexico border in the Isleta neighborhood of El Paso, Troncoso attended college in New England. He went on to graduate from Harvard and did graduate studies in international relations and philosophy at Yale University. Troncoso, who has held a Fulbright Scholarship to Mexico, has been inducted into the national Hispanic Scholarship Fund’s Alumni Hall of Fame. He makes his home today in New York, and he serves as the director of the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center.

Troncoso is the author of the critically acclaimed novel The Nature of Truth and a much celebrated volume of short stories, The Last Tortilla and Other Stories, which won both the Premio Aztlán and the Southwest Book Award.

Bell describes these largely autobiographical stories as “tender and moving tales that highlight the values of hard work and compassion, human dignity and integrity in interpersonal and intercultural relationships.”

Troncoso’s essays have appeared in newspapers and magazines across the country, and his work has been featured in numerous anthologies, including New World: Young Latino Writers; Hecho en Tejas: An Anthology of Texas-Mexican Literature; Latino Boom, and The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature.

In addition to the main reading, he will meet and interact throughout the day with students in Spanish and Latin American Studies classes as well as in English classes. 

“Troncoso is a superb storyteller. He renders characters so vividly that the reader gains a real sense for what life is like on the border,” said Pat Slattery, director of composition in the department of English. “Our students will benefit intellectually from Troncoso’s talk, and I’m especially looking forward to seeing what the students have to say about his fiction.”

Many of Troncoso’s articles and essays, as well as Spanish- and English-language versions of some of his stories, are available for reading or download from his Web site, www.sergiotroncoso.com.

Troncoso’s appearance at the university is co-sponsored by the Division of Student Affairs and the Multicultural Center, and by the department of English and the Latin American and Latino studies program in Fulbright College.

To view all the events scheduled during the Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration, go to http://dailyheadlines.uark.edu/13397.htm