CHESTERTOWN, MD—Bestselling author Justin Torres comes to Washington College Tuesday, September 17 as the first guest of the “Chicano/a & Latino/a Voices Series” at the Rose O’Neill Literary House. The award-winning writer will read from his work at 4:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. 

Torres’ debut novel We the Animals was hailed by Vanity Fair as “A gorgeous, howling coming-of-age novel that will devour your heart,” and garnered significant critical acclaim from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and others major media.  The semi-autobiographical account of three brothers, Torres’ novel artfully explores themes of love, alienation, and growing up as a Puerto Rican-American in the United States. 

Beyond We the Animals, Torres’ stories and essays have been featured in the New Yorker, Granta, the Guardian, Harper’s, and more. A graduate of the Iowa Worker’s Workshop, Torres has also received fellowships from United States Artists, Stanford University, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard. He was also named one of Salon’s Sexiest Men of 2011. 

The “Chicano/a & Latino/a Voices” Series explores the diversity and energy of contemporary poets, novelists,  nonfiction writers,  and scholars. It aims to study and discover shared ideas, histories, cultures, and narratives of the Chicano/a and Latino/a experience.  The Literary House is located at 407 Washington Avenue.

Kimberly Uslin