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Sergio Troncoso is an American author of short stories and novels.
Troncoso, the son of Mexican immigrants, was born in El Paso, Texas. In 1999, his book of short stories, The Last Tortilla and Other Stories (University of Arizona Press), won the Premio Aztlán for the best book by a new Chicano writer, and the Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library Association.
In his story "Angie Luna," the tale of a feverish love affair in which a young man from El Paso rediscovers his Mexican heritage, Troncoso explores questions of self-identity and the ephemeral quality of love. "A Rock Trying to Be a Stone" is a story of three boys playing a dangerous game that becomes a test of character on the Mexican-American border. "My Life in the City" focuses on a transplanted Texan's yearning for companionship in New York City. "Remembering Possibilities" delves into the terror of a young man attacked in his apartment while he takes solace in memories of a lost love. Troncoso typically sets aside the polemics about social discomfort sometimes found in contemporary Chicano literature and concentrates instead on the moral and intellectual lives of his characters.
His novel, The Nature of Truth (Northwestern University Press), was published in 2003, and explores righteousness and evil, Yale and the Holocaust. Helmut Sanchez is a young researcher in the employ of renowned Yale professor Werner Hopfgartner. By chance, Helmut discovers a letter written decades ago by his boss mocking guilt over the Holocaust. Appalled, Helmut digs into the scholar's life and travels to Austria and Italy to uncover evidence of Hopfgartner's hateful past. Meanwhile, Hopfgartner's colleague and rival, Regina Neumann, wants to reveal the truth about Hopfgartner's sexual liaisons with vulnerable students before the professor's imminent retirement. Neumann traps Sarah Goodman, an insecure graduate student trying to find her place at Yale, into initiating formal charges of sexual harassment against Hopfgartner. Soon Helmut's intellectual quest for the truth metamorphoses into a journey of justice and blood- one with unforeseen consequences. Troncoso's novel explores how a man of Mexican-German heritage navigates a complex moral universe, and how his experience reveals the differences and links between righteousness and evil in the quest for the truth.
Troncoso's stories have been featured in many anthologies, including The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature (W.W. Norton), Once Upon a Cuento (Curbstone Press), Tierra Adentro: Cuentario (Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes: Mexico City), City Wilds: Essays and Stories about Urban Nature (University of Georgia Press), and New World: Young Latino Writers (Dell). His work has also appeared in Encyclopedia Latina, Newsday, The El Paso Times, Hadassah Magazine, Other Voices, Blue Mesa Review, and many other newspapers and magazines.
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