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Novel,
Short Stories, Essays, and Newspaper Columns by Sergio Troncoso
Novel
The Nature of Truth: The First Three
Chapters --- 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. Intelligent and
literate, Troncoso's convention-challenging philosophical 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.
Discussion Questions
for The Nature of Truth: A Novel.
Listen to Sergio's reading of excerpts from
his novel, 
The Nature
of Truth: Podcast (mp3 audio format; 30 minutes).
Short Stories
Angie Luna --- A
short story about a young man from El Paso, Texas who falls in love with an
older woman from Mexico and rediscovers his Mexican heritage.
Angie Luna ---
Spanish translation of "Angie Luna."
Espíritu
Santo --- Two elderly neighbors, who live in El Segundo Barrio, survive by
helping each other in an often evil world. A philosophical
story by Sergio Troncoso.
A Rock Trying to be a
Stone --- Three boys play a dangerous game that becomes a test of character
on the Mexican-American border.
Una Piedra
Tratando de Volverse Roca --- Spanish translation of "A Rock Trying to be a
Stone."
The Snake --- Tuyi, the fat boy everybody ignored, finds an adventure
with a snake and a border patrolman in Ysleta.
Discussion
Questions for The Last Tortilla and Other Stories --- "Angie
Luna," "
Listen to Sergio’s reading of excerpts from
his short story collection, The
Last Tortilla and Other Stories: Podcast (mp3 audio format; 38 minutes).
Essays
Two of Sergio's essays, Letter
to my Young Sons: Part One, about his wife's battle against breast cancer,
and The
Father is in the Details, about the details and struggles of being a
father, are available on Amazon Shorts.
Fresh Challah --- Dolores Rivero,
Sergio Troncoso's abuelita,
taught him to fight for what is right, as well as to be self-critical, which
helped him to appreciate Judaism.
Crossing
Borders --- The perils of crossing linguistic, cultural, and religious
borders have not deterred Sergio Troncoso from reaching out to the
"other" side, whatever that other side is.
Imagine
Ysleta --- Chicanos, poor Chicanos, think abbout and debate moral
questions, and Chicano writers should not ignore this part of 'life as it is.'
A Day Without Ideas
--- The ideas for stories are everywhere if we can resist seeing the world
without curiosity.
Terror and Humanity
--- An essay which explores the dangers oof abstraction in dehumanizing persons
and countries, written on September 11, 2001, during the attack on the Twin
Towers in New York City (where Sergio Troncoso lives), and published the next
day in Newsday.
Beyond Aztlán: Chicanos in the Ivy League --- Chicanos should
find their way back home, in words or deeds, after being in exile in the
American Northeast.
Latinos Find an
America on the Border of Acceptance --- American cultural acceptance of
Latinos has been uneven, and Latinos must define themselves while not
forgetting where they came from.
Why Should Latinos
Write Their Own Stories? --- The point of writing stories should be not
only to preserve cultural heritage, but also to challenge it.
Newspaper Columns
What should
Latino literature be?
How can our
children become early readers?
Why is
literature not necessarily elitist?
My trip to
the El Paso Public Library
Book review: Dagoberto Gilb's Gritos
Believable
unbelievable stories for children
Latinos do
not want to be categorized
Book review:
Ernesto Quiñonez's Chango's Fire
Book review:
Luis Alberto Urrea's The Hummingbird's Daughter
Book review: Rudolfo Anaya's The Man Who Could Fly
and Other Stories
Downtown
revitalization proponents don't understand El Segundo Barrio
Book review:
Eileen Welsome's The General and the Jaguar
Book review:
Ana Castillo's The Guardians
Book review: Latinos in Lotusland,
editor Daniel A. Olivas