News Articles
El Paso Times: An essayist for the border: Ysleta author Sergio Troncoso --- By Ramon Renteria. Sergio Troncoso (2011) discusses his new collection of essays, Crossing Borders: Personal Essays, with essays about the relationship with his father, his wife’s battle against breast cancer, and the struggles and successes he hopes to share with others.
Harvard Magazine: Identity Seeker --- By Liz Goodwin. In a retrospective (2008) on alumni attending their 25th Reunion at Harvard, Sergio talks about how he felt as a freshman at Harvard, and how he transformed himself from a scholar of the Mexican political economy to a writer focused on philosophical stories. Sergio Troncoso also discusses the work on his new novel and being on the board of directors of the Hudson Valley Writers' Center.
Houston Chronicle: A Thinking Man's Mystery --- By Fritz Lanham. Sergio Troncoso (2004) takes a philosophical perspective in his new novel, The Nature of Truth. The author discusses how his upbringing in El Paso and his studies at Harvard and Yale sparked his interest in philosophy. The novel is Troncoso's effort to have a dialogue with and issue a challenge to Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky on the creation and destruction of truth, moral responsibility and justification, and the links between righteousness and evil.
Conversation with C. M. Mayo and Sergio Troncoso --- Writer C.M. Mayo interviews Sergio Troncoso, via Skype, about the fragmentation of our country and culture, connecting to recreate new groups and families, and the Librotraficante movement against the banning of books in Arizona.
(2012; mp3 audio format; 59 minutes)
Texas Library Association Interview --- Ted Wanner of the Texas Library Association conducts an online interview with Sergio Troncoso, a preview of the annual conference in Houston, Texas. Troncoso talks about his new books, crossing geographical, intellectual, religious borders, and what inspired him to write his essays and novel.
(2012; mp3 audio format; 7 minutes)
Words on a Wire Interview (2011) --- Writer Daniel Chacon of KTEP’s Words on a Wire interviews Sergio Troncoso about being a writer in New York City with roots in El Paso, Texas, his wife’s battle against breast cancer, and his relationship to Judaism.
(2011; mp3 audio format; 11 minutes)
NPR Interview on Latino USA --- Host Maria Hinojosa of National Public Radio's Latino USA talks with Sergio Troncoso about his novel, The Nature of Truth, and how Chicano writers should expand their work beyond 'barrio' and 'familia' stories, to create characters instead of caricatures.
(2003; mp3 audio format; 4 minutes)
Yale Daily News: Troncoso teaches --- By Julie Post. Author Sergio Troncoso (2003) talks about his cultural adjustment at Harvard after growing up on the Mexican-American border, and encourages Yale students at La Casa Cultural to challenge their Latino heritage and ask what should Latinos be. He also discusses his novel's effort to provoke questions about the pursuit of truth and what is taught at places like Harvard and Yale.
Hispanic Scholarship Fund: HSF inducts five into 2003 Alumni Hall of Fame --- By Miguel Salinas. Five, including White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and writer Sergio Troncoso (2003), are inducted into the Hispanic Scholarship Fund's Alumni Hall of Fame, to celebrate success stories to inspire future Hispanic college graduates.
KTEP Interview on Perspectives (2000) --- Host Louie Saenz of KTEP’s Perspectives chats with Sergio Troncoso about his family and Ysleta, the struggle to become a writer, and the influence of his maternal grandmother, Dolores Rivero, and his paternal grandfather, Santiago Troncoso.
(2000; mp3 audio format; 32 minutes)
Radio and Print Interviews
Words on a Wire Interview (2014) --- Benjamin Saenz and Daniel Chacon sit down for a chat with Sergio Troncoso, a native of El Paso who has republished his novel The Nature of Truth. Troncoso explains what drove him to republish the work, and he reads an excerpt. He also explains why Ysleta is his favorite part of El Paso.
(2014; mp3 audio format; 33 minutes)
NPR’s On Point, with Tom Ashbrook --- WBUR's Tom Ashbrook of On Point talks with Clay Smith, Sarah Bird, Sergio Troncoso, and Philipp Meyer about “That Texas Tone in Literature.” These writers discuss the mythology of Texas versus the reality of the Texas miracle, the oil boom, Latinos and immigration, cattle country, urban Texas, and the borderlands.
(2014; mp3 audio format; 46 minutes)
Associated Press: El Paso native writes about life, love on the border --- By Michelle Koidin. Troncoso (2000) has always prodded people to think about moral issues, even as a young man growing up in a poor community of Mexican immigrants.
LatinoLink Interview --- Turning Ordinary Lives into Extraordinary Tales (2000). In this interview, the author discusses how he grew up in El Paso, Texas and his reaction to winning the Premio Aztlan for The Last Tortilla and Other Stories.
El Paso Times: New voice in Chicano literature --- By Ramon Renteria. Sergio Troncoso (1999) grew up in Ysleta as el terco, the hard-headed overachiever who went to Harvard and Yale and never forgot about his Mexican roots.
Interview in T-Zero Writers' Annual --- One of the first interviews (1998) of Sergio Troncoso. He discusses his reaction to the militarization of the Mexican-American border, his background as an economist and philosopher, and why he first decided to write short stories.
Interview on New Letters on the Air with Angela Elam --- Angela Elam interviews Sergio Troncoso on New Letters on the Air, the longest continuously-running broadcast of a national literary radio series. Troncoso talks about his philosophical essays and using moral examples in literature to effect change and new perspectives. He reads from Crossing Borders: Personal Essays and From This Wicked Patch of Dust.
(2013; mp3 audio format; 29 minutes)
Words on a Wire Interview (2013) --- Benjamin Alire Saenz and Daniel Chacon of Words on a Wire, a radio program of El Paso’s KTEP, talk with Sergio Troncoso about Our Lost Border: Essays on Life amid the Narco-Violence and receiving the Literary Legacy Award in El Paso, Texas. Paul Pedroza reads from his essay, “The Bridge to an Alien Nation.”
(2013; mp3 audio format; 29 minutes)
Older Radio and Print Interviews, News Articles
KUHA Houston Public Radio Interview --- Host Eric Ladau of Houston Public Radio’s 91.7 FM talks with Sergio Troncoso about his novel, From This Wicked Patch of Dust, and book of essays, Crossing Borders: Personal Essays, the importance of teachers, Harvard College, Judaism, and the politics of Latino literature in Texas and New York.
(2011; mp3 audio format; 82 minutes)
La Bloga Interview --- Daniel Olivas of La Bloga (2011) interviews Sergio Troncoso about his novel From This Wicked Patch of Dust, why he centered the novel on a group protagonist, the Martinez family, rather than an individual one, and the significance of time in the novel.
TheLatinoAuthor.com Interview --- TheLatinoAuthor.com website (2011) features Sergio Troncoso and asks him questions about his literary inspirations, how he began his writing career, what books and authors have influenced his writing, and what advice he would give to aspiring writers.
NPR interview on Morning Edition, with Steve Inskeep --- For his series on the U.S.-Mexico border, Steve Inskeep interviews Sergio Troncoso and his parents Rodolfo and Bertha Troncoso at their home in Ysleta. The family talks about growing up with kerosene lamps and stoves and an outhouse in the backyard, but his father’s humorous and honest responses to being a proud Mexicano steal the show.
(2014; mp3 audio format; 8 minutes)
KTEP Interview on Perspectives (2013) --- Louie Saenz, host of KTEP’s Perspectives, interviews author Sergio Troncoso about immigrant values, education, fatherhood, and the value of working together. Troncoso reads from his novel From This Wicked Patch of Dust and his essay in Our Lost Border: Essays on Life amid the Narco-Violence.
(2013; mp3 audio format; 29 minutes)
Kansas City’s KCUR, with Steve Kraske --- Steve Kraske interviews Sergio Troncoso about visiting Independence, Missouri to teach at the George Caleb Bingham Academy for the Arts during the summer, with student Ashton Harris. They talk about teachers and mentors, immigrant values, creating a writing community, and Our Lost Border: Essays on Life amid the Narco-Violence.
(2014; mp3 audio format; 32 minutes)