Building Bridges Across Borders, featuring Luis Alberto Urrea

In this week’s episode, Grant and Brooke speak with the ever-charming storyteller and best-selling author Luis Alberto Urrea about borders and how borders are often bridges to understanding. In this interview, Luis shares the rejection and pushback he experienced early in his career for tackling Mexican subjects and showcasing Mexican characters, and the pressure he got from the publishing industry to Anglicize his name. Listeners will be treated to fabulous stories and advice, and will also hear about why Luis feels hopeful about the future for writers of color.

ABOUT LUIS ALBERTO URREA

Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and American mother, Luis Alberto Urrea, a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow and 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist, is the author of 18 books, including The Devil’s Highway, his 2004 nonfiction account of a group of Mexican immigrants lost in the Arizona desert. His latest novel, The House of Broken Angels, was a 2018 finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. He is a distinguished professor of creative writing at the University of Illinois-Chicago.