Naperville's Luis Urrea wins literary award
Naperville resident Luis Alberto Urrea, professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is one of eight recipients of a 2017 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, which honors exceptional accomplishment in any literary genre.
Urrea, UIC College of Liberal Arts and Sciences distinguished professor, will be presented with the $10,000 award next month in New York City during the organization's annual ceremony honoring both established and emerging writers, artists, architects and musicians.
Work by Urrea also will be part of an exhibition featuring newly elected members and recipients of honors and awards, which will be on view in the academy's galleries from May 18 to June 11.
Urrea joins an illustrious group to earn the academy's recognition in the literature category, including recent winners author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates and performer, songwriter and lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda.
"It is a tremendous honor for which I am deeply grateful," Urrea said. "Better than the honor, though, is to be selected by personal heroes."
The academy's 250 members nominate candidates, and a rotating committee of writers selects the winners. This year's award committee members were John Guare, Thomas McGuane, Anne Tyler, Rosanna Warren and Joy Williams.
Urrea, a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for nonfiction and member of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame, was born in Tijuana, Mexico, to a Mexican father and an American mother. The best-selling author has won numerous awards for his poetry, nonfiction, fiction and essays, including a National Book Award for his 1999 memoir "Nobody's Son."
"The Water Museum," a 2015 collection of U.S. West- and Southwest-based short stories that, like some of his other best-selling works, reflect Urrea's personal knowledge and experience of the U.S.-Mexico border culture, was a finalist for the 2016 PEN-Faulkner Award.
It was named a best book of the year by The Washington Post, National Public Radio and Kirkus Reviews.
"The Devil's Highway," Urrea's 2004 nonfiction account of a group of Mexican immigrants lost in the Arizona desert, won the Lannan Literary Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Pacific Rim Kiriyama Prize.
His novels "The Hummingbird's Daughter" and "Queen of America" tell the story of Teresa Urrea, the unofficial Saint of Cabora and Mexico's Joan of Arc. The former book won the Kiriyama Prize in fiction and, along with "The Devil's Highway," was named a best book of the year by many publications.
"Into the Beautiful North," "The Devil's Highway" and "The Hummingbird's Daughter" have been collectively chosen for more than 30 national, local and collegiate One Book community reading programs.
"Into the Beautiful North," Urrea's "The Magnificent Seven"-inspired novel featuring 19-year-old Nayeli, who rounds up fellow Mexican villagers to seek seven good men from across the border to protect their town, is currently the basis for new stage productions and a future series on the TNT cable network.
Urrea came to UIC in 1999 and teaches creative nonfiction, fiction and poetry workshops for graduate and undergraduate students.
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is an honor society of the country's leading architects, artists, composers and writers. The organization was established in 1898 to "foster, assist and sustain an interest in literature, music and the fine arts."