Nobody's Son by Luis Alberto Urrea

Nobody's Son by Luis Alberto Urrea

Here's a story about a family that comes from Tijuana and settles into the 'hood, hoping for the American Dream...I'm not saying it's our story. I'm not saying it isn't. It might be yours. "How do you tell a story that cannot be told?" writes Luis Alberto Urrea in this potent memoir of a childhood divided. Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and an Anglo mother from Staten Island, Urrea moved to San Diego when he was three. His childhood was a mix of opposites, a clash of cultures and languages. In prose that seethes with energy and crackles with dark humor, Urrea tells a story that is both troubling and wildly entertaining. Urrea endured violence and fear in the black and Mexican barrio of his youth. But the true battlefield was inside his home, where his parents waged daily war over their son's ethnicity. "You are not a Mexican!" his mother once screamed at him. "Why can't you be called Louis instead of Luis?" He suffers disease and abuse and he learns brutal lessons about machismo. But there are gentler moments as well: a simple interlude with his father, sitting on the back of a bakery truck; witnessing the ultimate gesture of tenderness between the godparents who taught him the magical power of love. "I am nobody's son. I am everybody's brother," writes Urrea. His story is unique, but it is not unlike thousands of other stories being played out across the United States, stories of other Americans who have waged war both in the political arena and in their own homes to claim their own personal and cultural identity. It is a story of what it means to belong to a nation that is sometimes painfully multicultural, where even the language both separates and unites us. Brutally honest and deeply moving, Nobody's Son is a testament to the borders that divide us all.

Urrea, Luis Alberto: -

Luis Alberto Urrea, 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for nonfiction and member of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame, is a prolific and acclaimed writer who uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss, and triumph. Winner of a Lannan Literary Award and Christopher Award, he is also the recipient of an American Book Award, the Kiriyama Prize, the National Hispanic Cultural Center's Literary Award, a Western States Book Award, a Colorado Book Award, an Edgar Award, and a citation of excellence from the American Library Association. He is a member of the Latino Literary Hall of Fame. Born in Tijuana, Mexico, to a Mexican father and an American mother, he has published extensively in all the major genres. The critically acclaimed and bestselling author of over a dozen books, he has won numerous awards for his poetry, fiction, and essays. After serving as a relief worker in Tijuana and a film extra and columnist-editor-cartoonist for several publications, he moved to Boston, where he taught expository writing and fiction workshops at Harvard. He has also taught at Massachusetts Bay Community College and the University of Colorado and was the writer in residence at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette. He is a professor of creative writing at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780816522705
ISBN 10	0816522707
Title	Nobody's Son
Author	Luis Alberto Urrea
Series	Camino Del Sol Ser
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	University of Arizona Press
Year published	2002-08-30
Number of pages	200
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.