Justin Torres

Justin Torres - Picador Guest Professor in the summer semester of 2016

Justin Torres, born 1980 in New York City is the son of a Puerto Rican father and a mother of Italian and Irish descent. He was a fellow at Stanford University and at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is Assistant Professor of English at UCLA. His first novel «We the Animals», a national best seller, has been translated into fifteen languages. After his novel was published, the National Book Foundation named him one of 2012’s «5 Under 35». The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Guardian und The Advocate have published his short fiction and non-fiction pieces. In 2018 the movie adaptation of his novel was released. The film won the Sundance NEXT Innovator Award and was nominated for five 2019 Independent Spirit Awards. Justin Torres has been the recipient of a grant from the National Endownment for the Arts, a Rolón Fellowship in Literature from United States Artists, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award.