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Novel, Short Stories, Essays, and Newspaper Columns by Sergio Troncoso

 

Sergio's weekly blog about writing, politics, and finance is at www.ChicoLingo.com. Click Chico Lingo Archive for a complete list of entries with hyperlinks.

Novel

The Nature of Truth: The First Three Chapters --- Helmut Sanchez is a young researcher inn 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). All of his podcasts are also available, free, on iTunes; just type in Sergio's name in the iTunes Music Store.

 

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," "Espíritu Santo," "A Rock Trying to be a Stone," and "The Snake" are included in this book of short stories.

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 ifff we can resist seeing the world without curiosity.

Terror and Humanity --- An essay which explores the dangers oofff 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: David Dorado Romo's Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juárez: 1893-1923

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

Book review: Daniel A. Olivas’s Anywhere But L.A.