Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Héctor Tobar will visit IU Bloomington for Hispanic Heritage Month. Tobar is the author of four books, including nonfiction works Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle That Set Them Free (which was made into the film, “The 33,” in 2015) and Translation Nation: Defining a New Identity in the Spanish-Speaking United States, and two novels, The Barbarian Nurseries and The Tattooed Soldier. His work has received great acclaim: Deep Down Dark, for example, was a Publisher’s Weekly Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book, as well as a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, while The Barbarian Nurseries received the California Book Award Gold Medal for Fiction and was also a New York Times Notable Book.
Tobar worked at the Los Angeles Times for almost 20 years, where he formed part of the team that won a Pulitzer for its reporting on the 1992 L.A. riots. He is currently on faculty at UC Irvine, and is also a contributing writer for the New York Times opinion pages, as well as writing for The New Yorker and other publications.
Tobar’s visit is co-sponsored by CAHI, the College of Arts and Sciences Office of Diversity and Inclusion, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society, the Latino Studies Program, the Media School, and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.