Justin Torres
Justin Torres | |
|---|---|
 Torres at Ubud Writers & Readers Festival 2012 | |
| Born | 1980 (age 43–44) New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation | Novelist, writer |
| Nationality | American, Puerto Rican |
| Education | New York University The New School The University of Iowa |
| Notable works | We the Animals (2011) Blackouts (2023) |
| Notable awards | First Novelist Award; National Book Award for Fiction |
| Website | |
| www | |
Justin Torres (born 1980) is an American novelist and an associate professor of English at University of California, Los Angeles.[1] He won the First Novelist Award for his semi-autobiographical debut novel We the Animals (2011), which was also a Publishing Triangle Award finalist and an NAACP Image Award nominee. The novel has been adapted into a film of the same title and was awarded the Next Innovator Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.[2] Torres' second novel, Blackouts, won the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction.[3]
Early life
[edit]Justin Torres was born to a father of Puerto Rican descent and a mother of Italian and Irish descent.[4] He was raised in Baldwinsville, New York, as the youngest of three brothers.[5][6] Although his novel We the Animals is not an autobiography, Torres has said that the "hard facts" in the novel mirror his own life.[6] City of God by Gil Cuadros, published in 1994, reportedly helped him to come out as gay.[7] After leaving his family home, Torres attended SUNY Purchase on scholarship but quickly dropped out.[8] He spent a few years of moving around in the country and taking whatever job came, until a friend invited him to sit in a writing course taught at The New School, which motivated him to start writing seriously.[5][9]
Career
[edit]In 2010, Torres received his master's degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He was a 2010–2012 Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.[10] He was a recipient of the Rolón Fellowship in Literature from United States Artists.[6] In the summer of 2016, Torres was the Picador Guest Professor for Literature at the University of Leipzig's Institute for American Studies in Leipzig, Germany.[11] He is a former dog walker and a former employee of McNally Jackson, a bookstore in Manhattan.[6] Torres is currently an associate professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles.[1][12]
He has published short fiction for The New Yorker,[13] Granta, Harper's, Tin House, Glimmer Train, The Washington Post, and other publications, as well as non-fiction for The Advocate and The Guardian.[14]
A film adaptation of We the Animals, directed by Jeremiah Zagar, premiered in 2018 at the Sundance Film Festival,[15] where it won the Next Innovator Prize.[2]
Awards and honors
[edit]Torres' first novel, We the Animals (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011),[16] won an Indies Choice Book Awards (Adult Debut Honor Award) and was also a Publishing Triangle Award finalist and an NAACP Image Award nominee (Outstanding Literary Work, Debut Author).[17] The novel also won the 2012 First Novelist Award.
Torres was named by Salon.com as one of the sexiest men of 2011.[18] In 2012, the National Book Foundation named him among their "5 Under 35" young fiction writers.[19][20]
His 2023 novel Blackouts, a historical fiction dealing with queer identity and suppression of LGBT culture, won the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction[21] and was shortlisted for the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction[22] and the 2024 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.[23]
Torres received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2024.[24]
Works
[edit]Novels
[edit]- —— (2011). We the Animals (hardcover ed.). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780547576725.
- —— (2023). Blackouts (hardcover 1st ed.). New York: Macmillan. ISBN 9780374293574.
Short stories
[edit]- "Lessons". Granta. 104. November 20, 2008.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - "Reverting to a Wild State". The New Yorker. August 1, 2011.
- "Starve a Rat". Harper's Magazine. October 2011.
- "In the Reign of King Moonracer". The Washington Post. November 15, 2013.
- "Dark Mother". Dismantle: An Anthology of Writing from the Vona/Voices Writing Workshop (paperback 1st ed.). Philadelphia: Thread Makes Blanket Press. 2014. ISBN 9780989747417.
- "Where's My Wild Horse, Come to Rescue Me?". Flaunt. 125.
Articles
[edit]- "Breaking the Ice: What Russia's Queer Past Has to Tell Us About the Future". Out. September 3, 2013.
- "The James Baldwin Message for Trans People". The Advocate. November 7, 2013.
- "Derek Jarman's Alternative to The New Gay Credo". The Advocate. March 13, 2014.
- "In Praise of Latin Night at the Queer Club". The Washington Post. June 13, 2016.
- "Dog-Walking for a Wealthy Narcissist". The New Yorker. Vol. 92, no. 32. October 10, 2016. p. 60.
- "The Rust Belt Whips and Snaps After Eight Years of Obama". The Washington Post. January 13, 2017.
- "Supportive Acts". Bomb Magazine. September 7, 2017.
- "The Sordid Necessity of Living for Others". The New Yorker. November 6, 2018.
References
[edit]- ^ a b "'The Way You Tell the Story': Justin Torres on Writing (Interview Series, The Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress)". www.loc.gov. November 10, 2020. Retrieved April 23, 2024.
- ^ a b "next-innovator-award-we-the-animals". www.sundance.org. Retrieved November 8, 2018.
- ^ Harris, Elizabeth A.; Alter, Alexandra (November 15, 2023). "Justin Torres, Author of 'Blackouts,' Wins National Book Award for Fiction". The New York Times. Retrieved November 20, 2023.
- ^ Chai, Barbara (August 30, 2011). "Keeping It All in the Family". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved October 11, 2018.
- ^ a b "Justin Torres, author of 'We the Animals'". SFGate. September 3, 2011. Retrieved October 11, 2018.
- ^ a b c d "Interview: Justin Torres, author of 'We the Animals'". Electric Literature. August 19, 2011. Retrieved November 1, 2018.
- ^ Waters, Sarah; White, Edmund; Winterson, Jeanette; Kay, Jackie; Callow, Simon; Donoghue, Emma (July 1, 2017). "'At last I felt I fitted in': writers on the books that helped them come out". The Guardian. Retrieved October 18, 2018.
- ^ Waldman, Katy (December 31, 2023). "Justin Torres's Art of Exposure and Concealment". The New Yorker.
- ^ McDonnell, Tim. "Justin Torres' Hard-Knock Debut Novel". Mother Jones. Retrieved November 8, 2018.
- ^ "Stanford Creative Writing Program". Stanford.edu. Archived from the original on November 13, 2011. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
- ^ American Studies Leipzig (March 7, 2016). "Next Picador Professor Justin Torres". Retrieved February 12, 2017.
- ^ "Torres, Justin". UCLA.edu. Retrieved April 7, 2024.
- ^ Torres, Justin (July 21, 2014). "Reverting to a Wild State". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved October 9, 2024.
- ^ "National Book Foundation Author Bio". National Book Foundation. Retrieved November 18, 2023.
- ^ Schoenbrun, Dan. "The 50 Most Anticipated American Films of 2017 | Filmmaker Magazine". Filmmaker Magazine. Retrieved July 9, 2018.
- ^ Salvatore, Joseph (September 23, 2011). "We the Animals — By Justin Torres — Book Review". The New York Times.
- ^ "Radcliffe Institute for Advance Study Harvard University Fellows: Justin Torres" Harvard.edu. Retrieved 10-07-13.
- ^ "Salon's Sexiest Men of 2011 | Slide Show". Salon.com. November 17, 2011. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
- ^ Justin Torres at National Book Foundation.
- ^ The National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35" Fiction, 2012
- ^ "National Book Awards 2023". National Book Foundation.
- ^ "Announcing the Finalists for the 36th Annual Lambda Literary Awards". them. March 27, 2024. Retrieved April 5, 2024.
- ^ "Orwell Prizes 2024 shortlists announced". Books+Publishing. June 11, 2024. Retrieved June 24, 2024.
- ^ "Announcements – John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation…". May 15, 2024. Archived from the original on May 15, 2024.
External links
[edit]
- Justin Torres – website
- Daniel Olivas interviews Justin Torres, Los Angeles Review of Books, September 26, 2012.
- "In Conversation | Justin Torres and Jenine Holmes", The Brooklyn Rail, December 2011–January 2012.
- Faculty profile at UCLA's English Department
- Profile at National Book Foundation
