Sergio Troncoso is a writer of essays, short stories, and novels, and the author of five books. Our Lost Border: Essays on Life amid the Narco-Violence is an anthology of personal essays co-edited with Sarah Cortez, and focuses on how the unique bi-national and bi-cultural existence along the United States-Mexico border has been disrupted by recent drug violence. Publishers Weekly called it an “eye-opening collection of essays.”
Please address professional inquiries to: SergioTroncoso@gmail.com. Downloadable PDF biography of Sergio Troncoso.
From This Wicked Patch of Dust:
“Troncoso is clearly adept at his craft, telling a story filled with rich language and the realities of family life....Troncoso’s novel is an engaging literary achievement.”
---Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Nuanced and authentic....The real beauty of this book is that it mines the rich diversity of tradition and culture among Latinos, as well as the commonalities they share with other Americans—love of family, faith and country.”
---The Dallas Morning News
Crossing Borders: Personal Essays:
“These very personal essays cross several borders: cultural, historical, and self-imposed....We owe it to ourselves to read, savor and read them again.”
---The El Paso Times
“Troncoso’s book is a piece of artwork and a piece of heritage that everyone, not just Latinos, should take the time to read.”
---Portland Book Review
“A champion for the rights of immigrants who have come to this country for a better, more prosperous life.”
---NewPages.com
Crossing Borders: Personal Essays is a collection of personal essays about fatherhood, interfaith marriage, breast cancer and families, poverty, literacy, and education. The book won the Bronze Award for Essays in ForeWord Review’s Book of the Year Awards.
His first book The Last Tortilla and Other Stories won the Premio Aztlan Literary Prize and the Southwest Book Award. The Nature of Truth is a philosophical novel about a Yale research student who discovers that his boss, a renowned professor, hides a Nazi past.
From This Wicked Patch of Dust is a story about the Martinez family who begins life in a border shantytown and struggles to stay together despite cultural clashes, different religions, and politics after 9/11. The novel was named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best of 2012, and won the Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library Association.
He graduated from Harvard College, and studied international relations and philosophy at Yale University. He won a Fulbright scholarship to Mexico, where he studied economics, politics, and literature. He was inducted into the Hispanic Scholarship Fund’s Alumni Hall of Fame and the Texas Institute of Letters. He is a member of PEN, a writers’ organization protecting free expression and celebrating literature.
Troncoso teaches writing workshops at the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center, and is a resident faculty member of the Yale Writers’ Conference.
The son of Mexican immigrants, Sergio Troncoso was born and grew up in the unincorporated neighborhood or colonia of Ysleta on the outskirts of El Paso, Texas. His parents built their adobe house, and the family lived with kerosene lamps and stoves and an outhouse in the backyard during their first years in Texas.
Our Lost Border: Essays on Life amid the Narco-Violence:
“Oscillating between gruesome and hopeful, the collection ‘was born of a vision to bear witness to how this violence has shattered life on the border,’ yet is imbued with optimism....Indeed, these essayists posit that widespread hope for the region begins with the involvement of the individual: ‘This should be our struggle.’”
---Publishers Weekly
“Nightly shootings, kidnappings, robberies and the discovery of mass graves—all these and more have put an end to a once-thriving tourist industry and a rich cultural exchange between those living on either side of the boundary. Where there were once bridges, there are now high walls....A tough but eye-opening read.”
---Kirkus Reviews