Ernesto Quiñonez

Ernesto Quiñonez (born 1969) is an American novelist. His work received the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers designation, the Borders Bookstore Original New Voice selection, and was declared a "Notable Book of the Year" by The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Quiñonez is an associate professor at Cornell University.

Ernesto Quiñonez
Born1969 (age 50–51)
Ecuador
OccupationNovelist, professor
NationalityEcuadorian, American
GenreFiction, non-fiction, journalism
Notable worksBodega Dreams (2000)
Chango’s Fire (2004)

Work

Quiñonez's first novel, Bodega Dreams, was published in 2000. The New York Times declared it "a New Immigrant Classic"[1] and “a stark evocation of life in the projects of El Barrio...the story he tells has energy and nerve.”[2] Time Magazine announced that "Quiñonez knows this 'hood--readers may have to remind themselves that this is a work of fiction and not a memoir. His prose, detailed and passionate, brings the tale to life."[3]

In Quiñonez's second novel, Chango’s Fire, published in 2004, the protagonist, Julio Santana, is an intelligent high-school dropout who moonlights as an arsonist.[4] The Washington Post declared that Chango’s Fire "succeeds in its rich characterizations of the people of the barrio, led by Julio, whose complexity and sensitivity carry the story." The El Paso Times praised Quiñonez's "extraordinary ability to detail, and nurture, and then unveil complex emotions in his characters. For any reader who wants to believe in a difficult protagonist, and appreciate the reality of El Barrio beyond facile stereotypes, this book is essential."[5] Kirkus Reviews criticized the characters and situations in Chango's Fire for lack of believably but hailed "Quiñonez's ingeniously detailed revelations of how people cheat and improvise, to survive in an impoverished and dangerous racist environment. This is an author who knows his material."[4] Booklist heralded it as a "searing portrait of a community at the tipping point...Quiñonez ably illuminates the sordid politics of gentrification and the unexpected places new immigrants turn to for social and spiritual support."[6]

The Wall Street Journal declared that Quiñonez third novel Taina, "Though Taina is far more modest in scope, it has the same complicated intimacy with the neighborhood and its history as Bodega Dreams."

Quiñonez is a Story Teller for The Moth and a Sundance Writers Lab fellow and last appeared in the "Blackout" episode of PBS American Experience.

Bibliography

Novels
  • Bodega Dreams (2000)
  • Chango’s Fire (2004)
  • Taina (2019)

Essays
  • "The White Baby", The New York Times, June 6, 2000
  • "Dog Days", The New York Times Magazine, November 26, 2000
  • "Counting The Ways", The New York Times Magazine, November 11, 2001
  • "Y Tu Black Mama, Tambien, Newsweek, June 12, 2003
  • "Catcalling", Newsweek, August 14, 2003
  • "The Fires Last Time", The New York Times; December 18, 2005.
  • "The Diaper Caper and Small Dog Scam", The New York Times, July 8, 2007
  • "The Black and Brown Divide", Esquire, July 2008

Scholarly engagement

Scholars continue to analyze Ernesto Quiñonez's novels and their overarching themes of economic, cultural, and political power.

  • Chapter 7. Bodega Sold Dreams: Middle-Class Panic and the Cross-over Aesthetics of In the Heights, Elena Machado Sáez, Dialectical Imaginaries Materialist Approaches to U.S. Latino/a Literature in the Age of Neoliberalism, Edited by Marcial González and Carlos Gallego, U. Michigan Press, 2019
  • Chapter 12. Memory, Space, and Gentrification: The Legacies of the Young Lords and Urban Decolonial Environmentalism in Ernesto Quiñonez’s Bodega Dreams, David J. Vazquez, Latinx Environmentalisms Place, Justice, and the Decolonial, Edited by Sarah D. Wald, David J. Vázquez, Temple University, 2019
  • Resisting Gentrification in Quiara Alegría Hudes and Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights and Ernesto Quiñonez's Bodega Dreams, Cazares, Gabriela, American Studies, Vol. 56, No 2, 2017
  • Bodega Dreams: Rewriting the Master Narrative of Hope, Mundo, Jaime, Review: Literature and Art of the Americas, Fall 2017, Vol. 50, No 1,
  • Writing Ruination and Control in New York City: Ernesto Quiñonez’s Chango’s Fire and José Rivera’s Marisol, Dalia, Kandiyoti, Latino Studies, April 2017, Vol. 15, Issue 1, pg. 29-49.
  • Chapter 7, "Between Hosts and Guests: Ernesto Quiñonez’s Chango’s Fire", Hospitality in American Literature and Culture, Ana Maria Manzanas Calvo, Taylor & Francis Books, 2016.
  • Because Place Still Matters: Mapping Puertorriqueñidad in Bodega Dreams, Irizarry, Ylce, CENTRO Journal, Spring 2015, Vol. 27, Issue 1.
  • Spaces and Flows In the Puerto Rican Barrio: Latero Stories, Bodega Dreams, Benito, Jesus, Revista de Estudios Norteamericanos, no 18 (2014) Seville, Spain. ISSN 1133-309X, pp. 13–33.
  • "Silence and Language in Ernesto Quiñonez’s Stories”,'' Bridget Kevane, Critical Insights: Contemporary Immigrant Short Fiction, Salem Press, 2015
  • The postmodern ethnic condition in Ernesto Quiñónez’s Bodega Dreams" Domínguez, Barajas, Elias. Latino Studies, 2014, Volume 12, Issue 1, pg. 7–26.
  • Dreaming the Nuyorican In Ernesto Quiñonez's Bodega Dreams: Representations of Multicultural Citizenship In 21st Century Latino Literature, Flint, Holly, Bilingual Review, Vol. 31, Issue 1.
  • The Fire Between Them: Religion & Gentrification In Ernesto Quinonez's Chango's Fire, Mendez, Susan C., CENTRO Journal, Spring 2011, Vol.23, Issue 1.
  • The Politics of Gentrification in Ernesto Quinonez's Novels, Moiles, Sean. Critique; 2011, Vol. 52 Issue 1.
  • Chapter 7: The Poetics of Aquí: Barriocentrism in Puerto Rican Diaspora Literature from Mean Streets to Neo- Noir, Dalia, Kandiyoti, Migrant Sites, Dartmouth Press, 2010.
  • Reimagining the Ethnic Enclave: Gentrification, Rooted Cosmopolitanism, and Ernesto Quiñonez’s Chango’s Fire, Dwyer, June, MELUS, Volume 34, Number 2, 2009.
  • On Bodega Dreams, Marwell, P. Nicole P., Sociological Forum, Volume 24, Issue 2, June 2009.
  • Chapter 7: Literary Tropicalizations of the Barrio: Ernesto Quiñonez's Bodega Dreams and Ed Vega's Mendoza's Dreams, Antonia Dominguez Miguela, Writiing Off the Hyphen: New Perspectives on the Literature of the Puerto Rican Diaspora, Editors, Jose L. Torres-Padilla, Carmen Haydee Rivera, University of Washington Press, 2008.
  • Chapter 13: Getting There and Back: The Road, the Journey, and Home in Nuyorican Diaspora Literature, Solimar Otero,Writiing Off the Hyphen: New Perspectives on the Literature of the Puerto Rican Diaspora, Editors, Jose L. Torres-Padilla, Carmen Haydee Rivera, University of Washington Press, 2008.
  • Ernesto Quiñonez's Fiction Seen As A Picaresque Narrative, Ignacio Rodeño Iturriaga, CENTRO Journal, Volume: 20, Issue: 2, Fall 2008.
  • Barrio, Bodega, and Botanica Aesthetics: The Layered Traditions of the Latino Imaginary, Solimar Otero, Atlantic Studies, October 2007.
  • Chapter 2: The Meaning of Consuelo and Chango's Fire, Profane & Sacred: Latino/a American Writers Reveal the Interplay of the Secular and the Religious, Bridget A. Kevane, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2007.
  • Chapter 2: Mercado Dreams: The End(s) of Sixties Nostalgia in Comptemporary Ghetto Fiction, The Latino/a Canon and the Emergence of Post-Sixties Literature, Elena Machado Saez, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
  • Chapter 8: The Fiction of Ernesto Quiñonez, Latino literature in America, Bridget A. Kevane, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003.
  • When Willie Met Gatsby: The Critical Implications of Ernesto Quiñonez's Bodega Dreams, Dwyer June, LIT: Literature, Interpretation, Theory 14.2, Fall 2003.
  • Perchance to Dream: The Great Gatsby, Willie Bodega, and Other Related Topics." Jose L. Torres-Padilla. Latino(a) Research Review, 5.2&3 (2002-2003): 157-59.

Further reading
  • Entertainment Weekly, USA, March 26, 2020, Rosy Cordero, "Bodega Dreams author on overcoming 'systemic racism' in publishing 20 years ago, and today"
  • Wiener Zietung, Austria, October 2, 2012, Von Klaus Stimeder, "Ernesto Quinoñez ist einer der berühmtesten Latino-Schriftsteller der USA Der Autor nach den Hundstagen"
  • La Hora, Ecuador, February 8, 2009, Maria Barrera, "El Espanglish No Esta Matando al Español,”
  • The Daily News, April 7, 2005, Carlos Cruz, interview, "Quinonez's Fire".
  • The Washington Post, February 17, 2005, Peter Eisner, "Where There is Smoke"
  • USA Today, Reviews, December 9, 2004, Carol Memmott, Review of Chango's Fire.
  • NOW, Toronto, Canada, October 22, 2004, Maria Amuchastegui, interview, "Quinonez On Fire".
  • The Puerto Rico Herald, October 24, 2004, Mary Ann Grossmann, Interview, "Latino Writers, Universal Themes".
  • "ABC", Spain, May 18, 2001, Alfonso Armada, “Ernesto Quiñonez: Necesitamos Intelectuales Latinos,”
  • “Vistazo", Ecuador, Adriana Carrera, February 2001, "De Guayaquil a Harlem,”
  • The Independent, London, UK, November 26, 2000, Sue Steward, interview, "Up Tempo at the Salsa Museum".
  • New York Times Book Review, March 12, 2000, Maud Casey, "Bad Influencia"
  • Time, March 27, 2000, Desa Philadelphia, "Moving Up: A Debut about Upward Mobility, Lowdown Crime"
  • The Times Literary Supplement, November 3, 2000, Stephen Henighan, review of Bodega Dreams
  • El Pais, Spain, September 2, 2000, Isable Piquer, interview, "Ernesto Quiñonez La Nueva Voz del Harlem Hispano"
  • Il Manfiesto, Italy, December 8, 2000, Francesca Lazzarato, "Il Barrio del Gran Gatsby"
  • The New York Times, March 15, 2000, Finn Robin, interview, "Public Lives"
  • The Village Voice, April 15, 1999, Ed Morales, Interview, "Writers on the Verge"
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References
  1. Cornell.edu
  2. The New York Times
  3. Time
  4. "Chango's Fire". Kirkus Reviews. August 15, 2001. Retrieved 12 April 2015.
  5. Sergiotroncoso.com
  6. Amazon.com
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