My new novel, The Barbarian Nurseries, a tale of modern Southern California, is published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
A New York Times Notable Book for 2011
A Los Angeles Times Best Books of 2011
A San Francisco Chronicle Best Books of 2011
A Boston Globe Best Fiction of 2011
Winner of the California Book Award
Gold Medal for Fiction for 2012
"The Barbarian Nurseries is a book of extraordinary scope and extraordinary power... Stubborn, even-tempered Araceli is a great and somewhat daunting character, worthy of Gabriel García Márquez." --Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Hector
Tobar's novel is astonishing, like a many-layered mural on a long wall
in Los Angeles, a tapestry of people and neighborhoods and stories. A
vivid testament to Southern California as the world. Araceli is so
unexpected and unique; she's a character America needs to see, and this
novel takes her on a journey America needs to understand." --Susan Straight
"Tobar...exhibits a seismographic sensitivity to the tensions along the fault lines of his cultural terrain. [His] portraits, acute and humane, render his characters intelligible. His illuminations become our recognitions." --New York Times Book Review
"Tobar delivers a riveting, insightful morality
tale of conspicuously consuming Americans and their Mexican servants in
the O.C...Tobar is both inventive and relentless in pricking the pretentious
social consciences of his entitled Americans, though he also casts a
sober look on the foibles of the Mexicans who serve them. His sharp eye
for Southern California culture, spiraling plot twists, ecological
awareness, and ample willingness to dole out come-uppance to the
nauseatingly privileged may put readers in mind of T.C. Boyle." --Publishers Weekly
"This is a novel of Los Angeles, and maybe the finest we'll see for many years. It is also a novel that triumphantly transcends geography and delivers a stirring look at the borders of our expectations, both great and small." --Los Angeles Review of Books "Tobar's superb multilayered novel defines the social divide of Southern
California, emphasizing in a complex and human way that there are no
black-and-white answers in the immigration debate."
--Library Journal (Starred Review)
“Tobar’s altogether
strange and wonderful heroine…is proud, talented, bitter, bitterly funny,
naive, imposing and severe. She’s unlike
the hero of any novel I can remember reading…”--Bloomberg
“…a
ripping novel—and a proper adventure yarn—about power
and identity in 21st century California.” --San Francisco Chronicle
“The
Barbarian Nurseries is a virtuosic
and hard-hitting novel about social schism in Southern California…Tobar
exposes disturbing and enlightening ironies about the perpetuation of both privilege
and disadvantage.” --Times Literary Supplement.
“…brimming
with interwoven stories that form a vibrant portrait of Los Angeles…a marvelous
pastiche of social commentary ensconced in a family domestic drama.”--Booklist, (Starred Review).
"The Barbarian Nurseries is a huge novel of this century, as sprawling
and exciting as Los Angeles itself...
A story that was
demanded; we can celebrate that it is now here." --Dagoberto Gilb
"Sad, funny, seemingly inevitable — such are the metaphors and insights
from Héctor Tobar, an author from whom we expect nothing less, and look
forward to more." --The Washington Post
My novel The Tattooed Soldier is published in paperback by Penguin Books and was a finalist for the PEN USA West Award for Fiction..
Learn more about The Tattooed Solider
Set in the tenements, tunnels, alleys and parks of immigrant Los Angeles, and in Guatemala during the military dictatorship there, The Tattooed Soldier is a political novel about love, justice and revenge.
A little while back, a Dutch documentary crew asked me to define what Los Angeles is and how it became what it is today.My answer, on You Tube.
You can write to mehere.
If you've read one of his books, or his journalism, he'd love to hear from you.
