Author on the Airwaves: Rolando Hinojosa

Hinojosa chosen as September 2014’s “Author of the Month” on Houston Public Media

Houston Public Media radio host Eric Ladau interviewed Hinojosa for its website’s “Arte Público Press Author of the Month” feature, and along with the transcript, their conversation is available to listeners on the station’s interactive site through on-demand audio streaming here.

Click here to see all Arte Público authors featured on Houston Public Media.

About the Author:

ROLANDO HINOJOSA, the Ellen Clayton Garwood Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Texas at Austin, is the recipient of numerous literary awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award; the most prestigious prize in Latin American fiction, Casa de las Américas, for the best Spanish American novel in 1976; and the Premio Quinto Sol in 1974. His novels include The Valley / Estampas del Valle,  Ask a Policeman, The Useless Servants,  and Dear Rafe / Mi querido Rafa, all published by Arte Público Press.

About his latest book, Klail City / Klail City y sus alrededores

Don Aureliano Mora waits three years for justice after his son, a World War II veteran, is murdered by a Belken County Deputy Sheriff. When the Anglo gets away with murder, Don Aureliano takes matters—in the shape of a crowbar—into his own hands, pulverizing the plaque in old Klail City Park that honors the town’s World War II vets.

The younger generation has to fight for equality, too. The Texas Mexican boys playing high school football in Klail City didn’t get letter jackets, even though all of their Anglo peers did. And when the Mexican boys weren’t interested in hustling for the ball the following year, the school board came up with enough money for all the eligible players to get letter jackets. In the end it didn’t really matter; several of the Mexican boys died in the Korean War. But life goes on in Klail City. The rains come and go, crops are raised and people are buried.

This is the first bilingual edition ever available of this important novel. Originally published in Cuba in the 70s, the Spanish edition won the esteemed Casa de las Américas Prize in 1976. The English-language version was published by Arte Público in 1987. Frequently compared to William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha and Gabriel García Márquez’s Macondo, Rolando Hinojosa’s Klail City Death Trip Series is required reading for anyone interested in life along the Texas-Mexico border in the twentieth century.