The University of Arizona Press
Date: Thursday, December 18, 2025
Time: 1-5 p.m., CST
Place: Barnes & Noble-The Fountains, 8889 Gateway Blvd. West, Suite 120, El Paso, TX
Date: Friday, December 19, 2025
Time: 5 p.m., CST
Place: Sergio Troncoso Branch Library, 9321 Alameda Ave, Ysleta, TX
will sign books, including The Last Tortilla and Other Stories, at Barnes & Noble on Thursday, December 18. On Friday, December 19, he will celebrate young readers at the Troncoso Library with the Troncoso Reading Prizes: six prizes for middle-school and high-school students from Ysleta who have read the most books this season. The Last Tortilla and Other Stories won the Premio Aztlán Literary Prize for the best book by a new Chicano writer, and the Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library Association. Troncoso, the son of Mexican immigrants, was born in El Paso, Texas. He grew up on the east side of El Paso in rural Ysleta where his parents built their adobe house. Troncoso teaches at the Yale Writers’ Workshop in New Haven, Connecticut. In 2024, Troncoso was inducted into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame.
About the book:
Writing in a straightforward, light-handed style reminiscent of Grace Paley and Raymond Carver, Troncoso spins charming tales that reflect his experiences in two worlds. Troncoso’s El Paso is a normal town where common people who happen to be Mexican eat, sleep, fall in love, and undergo epiphanies just like everyone else. His tales are coming-of-age stories from the Mexican-American border, stories of the working class, stories of those coping with the trials of growing old in a rapidly changing society. He also explores New York with vignettes of life in the big city, capturing its loneliness and danger.
Beginning with Troncoso’s widely acclaimed story “Angie Luna,” the tale of a feverish love affair in which a young man rediscovers his Mexican heritage and learns how much love can hurt, these stories delve into the many dimensions of the human condition. We watch boys playing a game that begins innocently but takes a dangerous turn. We see an old Anglo woman befriending her Mexican gardener because both are lonely. We witness a man terrorized in his New York apartment, taking solace in memories of lost love. Two new stories will be welcomed by Troncoso’s readers. “My Life in the City” relates a transplanted Texan’s yearning for companionship in New York, while “The Last Tortilla” returns to the Southwest to explore family strains after a mother’s death—and the secret behind that death. Each reflects an insight about the human heart that has already established the author’s work in literary circles.
