Justin Torres

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Justin Torres
The University of Iowa
Notable worksWe the Animals (2011)
Blackouts (2023)
Notable awardsFirst Novelist Award; National Book Award for Fiction
Website
www.justin-torres.com

Justin Torres (born 1980) is an American novelist and an Associate Professor of English at

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

Justin Torres was born to a father of

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

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

University of Leipzig's Institute for American Studies in Leipzig, Germany.[11] He was 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,

The Advocate and The Guardian.[13]

A film adaptation of We The Animals, directed by Jeremiah Zagar, premiered in 2018 at the Sundance Film Festival,[14] where it won the Next Innovator Prize.[2]

Awards and honors

Torres' first novel,

NAACP Image Award nominee (Outstanding Literary Work, Debut Author).[16] The novel also won the 2012 First Novelist Award
.

Torres was named by Salon.com as one of the sexiest men of 2011.[17] In 2012, the National Book Foundation named him among their 5 under 35 young fiction writers.[18][19]

His 2023 novel Blackouts, a historical fiction, dealing with queer identity and historical suppression of LGBT culture, won the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction[20] and was shortlisted for the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction.[21]

Works

Books

  • We the Animals. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2011.
  • Blackouts. Macmillan. 2023.

Short stories

  • "Lessons". Granta. 104. November 20, 2008.
  • "Reverting to a Wild State". The New Yorker. August 1, 2011.
  • "Starve a Rat". Harper's Magazine. October 2011.
  • "Fiction Issue: 'In the reign of King Moonracer' by Justin Torres". The Washington Post. November 15, 2013.
  • "Dark Mother", in Dismantle: an anthology of writing from the VONA/Voices Writing Workshop(with contributors including Junot Díaz, Marissa Johnson-Valenzuela, Andrea Walls, Adriana Castro Ramírez, Camille Acker, Marco Fernando Navarro). Philadelphia, PA.
    ISBN 0-9897474-1-7
    , May 1, 2014.
  • "Where's My Wild Horse, Come to Rescue Me?". Flaunt. 125..

Articles

References

  1. ^ 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.
  2. ^ a b "next-innovator-award-we-the-animals". www.sundance.org. Retrieved November 8, 2018.
  3. ^ 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.
  4. ISSN 0099-9660
    . Retrieved October 11, 2018.
  5. ^ a b "Justin Torres, author of 'We the Animals'". SFGate. September 3, 2011. Retrieved October 11, 2018.
  6. ^ a b c d "Interview: Justin Torres, author of 'We the Animals'". Electric Literature. August 19, 2011. Retrieved November 1, 2018.
  7. ^ 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.
  8. ^ Waldman, Katy (December 31, 2023). "Justin Torres's Art of Exposure and Concealment". The New Yorker.
  9. ^ McDonnell, Tim. "Justin Torres' Hard-Knock Debut Novel". Mother Jones. Retrieved November 8, 2018.
  10. ^ "Stanford Creative Writing Program". Stanford.edu. Archived from the original on November 13, 2011. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  11. ^ American Studies Leipzig (March 7, 2016). "Next Picador Professor Justin Torres". Retrieved February 12, 2017.
  12. ^ "Torres, Justin". UCLA.edu. Retrieved April 7, 2024.
  13. ^ "National Book Foundation Author Bio". National Book Foundation. Retrieved November 18, 2023.
  14. ^ Schoenbrun, Dan. "The 50 Most Anticipated American Films of 2017 | Filmmaker Magazine". Filmmaker Magazine. Retrieved July 9, 2018.
  15. ^ Salvatore, Joseph (September 23, 2011). "We the Animals — By Justin Torres — Book Review". The New York Times.
  16. ^ "Radcliffe Institute for Advance Study Harvard University Fellows: Justin Torres" Harvard.edu. Retrieved 10-07-13.
  17. ^ "Salon's Sexiest Men of 2011 | Slide Show". Salon.com. November 17, 2011. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  18. ^ Justin Torres at National Book Foundation.
  19. ^ The National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35" Fiction, 2012
  20. ^ "National Book Awards 2023". National Book Foundation.
  21. them.
     March 27, 2024. Retrieved April 5, 2024.

External links

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