Event Recap: Luis Alberto Urrea Entertains at Powell's

This article is from contributor Ali J.  You can read more of Ali’s work on her blog Worducopia.

Luis Alberto Urrea’s reading at Powell’s on Wednesday evening turned out to be a reunion of sorts for devotees of the Fish Trap writers’ workshop. Urrea, a Creative Writing professor at The University of Illinois-Chicago, drew cheers from a number of audience members when he mentioned that he teaches a summer workshop at the Eastern Oregon location every two years.

This visit was part of a tour for Into the Beautiful North, a novel about a young Mexican woman who decides to cross the border to the United States, Magnificent Seven style, to bring seven men back to save her village from narco bandidos. It’s a tongue-in-cheek look at Mexican-American relations that, Urrea says, unfolds into a story of love for both places.

Urrea is also the author of eleven other books, including The Devil’s Highway, the much-heralded nonfiction account of a group of Mexican immigrants who became lost in the Arizona desert in 2001, and The Hummingbird’s Daughter, a historical novel based on the life of Urrea’s remarkable great aunt Teresa.

The Powell’s audience was highly entertained by Urrea’s stories of his Aunt Irma, the inspiration for Tia Irma of Into the Beautiful North. The real Irma wasn’t actually a mayor, but, like the character, she was an international bowling champion who insisted that Yul Brynner was Mexican. Urrea said that, after the copious research for The Hummingbird’s Daughter and The Devil’s Highway, he was ready to write something that would make him laugh.

Urrea expects to be back in Joseph, Oregon in the summer of 2010, and I’m tempted to go. Anyone out there have experience with Summer Fish Trap they’d like to share?

-Update- See a few more details about Urrea’s visit here.