Jump to content

Daniel Alarcón

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Daniel Alarcón
Alarcón in 2018
Alarcón in 2018
Born (1977-03-05) March 5, 1977 (age 47)
Lima, Peru
Occupation
  • Writer
  • journalist
  • radio producer
Alma materColumbia University (BA)
University of Iowa (MFA)
Notable awardsMacArthur Fellowship (2021)
SpouseCarolina Guerrero
ChildrenLeón & Eliseo
Website
radioambulante.org

Daniel Alarcón (born March 5, 1977, in Lima, Peru)[1] is a Peruvian-American novelist, journalist and radio producer. He is co-founder, host and executive producer of Radio Ambulante, an award-winning Spanish language podcast distributed by NPR. Currently, he is an assistant professor of broadcast journalism at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism[2] and writes about Latin America for The New Yorker.

He began his career writing fiction, publishing stories in magazines like The New Yorker, Granta, Virginia Quarterly Review and elsewhere, and his short stories have been widely anthologized. He served as Associate Editor of the Peruvian magazine Etiqueta Negra until 2015. He is a former Fulbright Scholar to Peru, and a 2011 Artist in Residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts. His novel At Night We Walk in Circles was published by Riverhead Books in October 2013. His most recent story collection, The King is Always Above the People, was long-listed for the National Book Award in 2018, and won the 2019 Clarke Prize in Fiction. He received the MacArthur 'Genius Grant' in 2021.[3]

Biography

[edit]

Alarcón, a native of Peru, was raised from the age of 3, in Birmingham, Alabama, and is an alumnus of Indian Springs School. As a high schooler, he attended the Telluride Association Summer Program.[4] He earned a bachelor's degree in anthropology from Columbia University in 1999 and a master of fine arts degree in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 2004. He has studied in Ghana and been a public school teacher in New York City. He was a high school classmate of novelist John Green.[5]

His first book, War by Candlelight, was a finalist for the 2006 PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award. In 2008, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Fellowship, named a "Best Young American Novelist" by Granta magazine, and one of 39 under 39 Latin American Novelists.[6] In 2010, he was also recognized by The New Yorker as one of 20 promising writers under 40.

Alarcón's debut novel, Lost City Radio, was published 2007, and has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Dutch, Greek, Italian, Serbian, Turkish, and Japanese. The German translation of Lost City Radio by Friedericke Meltendorf received the International Literature Award from the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. In 2009, he published a collection of short stories, El rey está siempre por encima del pueblo (The king is always above the people), and the following year, "Ciudad de payasos", a graphic novel adapted from his 2003 story City of Clowns, with illustrations by Peruvian artist Sheila Alvarado.

In 2011, he co-founded Radio Ambulante with his wife Carolina Guerrero, along with Camila Segura, Martina Castro and Annie Correal.[7][8]

In 2013, his second novel, At Night We Walk in Circles, was published to critical acclaim.[9]

Alarcón resides in Oakland, California, and works at Mills College as a Distinguished Visiting Writer.[10]

Alarcón is the host of The Good Whale, a podcast from The New York Times and Serial about the orca Keiko who portrayed Willy in the film Free Willy.[11]

Bibliography

[edit]

Novels

[edit]

Short fiction

[edit]
Collections
  • War by Candlelight: Stories (2005)
  • The King Is Always Above the People (2017)
  • El Rey siempre está por encima del pueblo Editorial Sexto Piso, Mexico City, Mexico, 2009
Anthologies (edited)
  • Zoetrope All Story: The Latin American Issue. A compilation of stories by Latin American writers. Co-edited with Diego Trelles Paz. Spring 2009
Stories
Title Year First published Reprinted/collected Notes
"City of Clowns" The New Yorker Adapted as a 2009 Peruvian short film
  • "Lima, Peru, July 28, 1979", Virginia Quarterly Review
  • "The King Is Always Above the People", Granta
  • "The Bridge". Granta. 103 (Autumn): 181–212. 2008.
  • "The Provincials", Granta
  • The Composer, Virginia Quarterly Review

Graphic novels

[edit]
  • City of Clowns. Illustrated by Sheila Alvarado. Riverhead Books. 2015. ISBN 978-1-59463-333-1. (Graphic novel adaptation of short story)

Non-fiction

[edit]
  • "What kind of Latino am I?". Salon. May 24, 2005.
  • "Let's go, country: The new Latin left comes to Peru". Harper's. September 2006.
  • "Lost in Translation". Granta. January 23, 2009.
  • "The Inauguration". Granta. January 27, 2009.
  • "Life Among the Pirates". Granta (109: Work). Winter 2009.
  • The secret miracle : the novelist's handbook. New York: Henry Holt. 2010.
  • "The Ground Floor". Granta (117: Horror). Autumn 2011. (Subscription Required)
  • "A Peruvian Soccer Fan in Exile". The New Yorker. November 13, 2017
  • "The collapse at Arecibo : the loss of Puerto Rico's iconic telescope". Annals of Astronomy. The New Yorker. 97 (7): 16–20. April 5, 2021.

Awards

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Daniel Alarcón". Granta. Retrieved January 14, 2024.
  2. ^ "Daniel Alarcón". Columbia Journalism School. Retrieved October 17, 2024.
  3. ^ N; P; R (September 28, 2021). "Radio Ambulante's Daniel Alarcón Receives Prestigious MacArthur 'Genius Grant'". NPR. Retrieved September 30, 2021.
  4. ^ Arana, Marie (July 23, 2006). "Daniel Alarcón: Writing North, Pointing South". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 4, 2016.
  5. ^ Let's Talk about Books. YouTube. Archived from the original on December 11, 2021.
  6. ^ "Bogotá 39 Escritores Menores de 39". Archived from the original on December 2, 2013. Retrieved November 27, 2013.
  7. ^ Egaña, Crysly (March 5, 2021). "Radio Ambulante: una década de riguroso contenido artesanal". EL NACIONAL (in Spanish). Retrieved October 20, 2021.
  8. ^ Guerra Correa, Fabio (March 4, 2016). "Hablame de vos". Brecha (in Spanish). Archived from the original on December 4, 2018. Retrieved October 20, 2021.
  9. ^ "Daniel Alarcón". Granta. Retrieved January 14, 2024.
  10. ^ "Daniel Alarcón". Granta. Retrieved January 14, 2024.
  11. ^ "The Good Whale". The New York Times. November 6, 2024. Retrieved November 14, 2024.
  12. ^ "Daniel Alarcón: 2004 Winner in Fiction". The Whiting Foundation. Retrieved November 10, 2023.
  13. ^ "The Mercantile Library • the John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize". www.mercantilelibrary.org. Archived from the original on May 31, 2008. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  14. ^ "fehlerseiten" (in German). Haus der Kulturen der Welt. March 16, 2022. Archived from the original on December 29, 2022. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
  15. ^ "MacArthur Foundation Announces 2021 'Genius' Grant Winners". The New York Times. September 28, 2021. Retrieved September 28, 2021.
[edit]