Biography of writer victor martinez

  • Victor Martinez was born and raised in Fresno, California, the fourth in a family of twelve children.
  • Victor L. Martinez was an American poet and author.
  • Victor L. Martinez (February 21, 1954 – February 18, 2011) was an American poet and author.

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    In 1996, Victor Martinez, a local poet, reached a personal low when he read his poetry at Intersection for the Arts and exactly six people showed up. Three were friends.

    A week later, he discovered that he was nominated for the National Book Award.

    Galeria de la Raza threw a send-off party before he flew to New York for the awards ceremony. “We said, ‘You’re going to win!’” recalls writer Alejandro Murguía. “He said. ‘Nah. I’m a Chicano writer. This is a New York award.’”

    He won. Suddenly, Martinez was being interviewed on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer. His picture was on the front of the San Francisco Chronicle, and when he walked down the streets of the Mission, strangers recognized him and said hello.

    When Martinez died early on the morning of February 18, 2011, in his apartment on Capp Street, a few days before his 57th birthday, that book, “Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida,” had become part of the canon of books taught to American high school students.

    At least thos

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    Victor Martinez dies at 56; novel won National Book Award

    Victor Martinez, who won the 1996 National Book Award for young people’s literature for his semi-autobiographical novel about growing up Mexican American in California’s Central Valley, has died. He was 56.

    Martinez died Feb. 18 at his San Francisco apartment of lung cancer, said his sister, Martha Manzano. The cancer was related to juvenile papillomavirus, which first struck him as an adolescent. Doctors linked the virus to growing up around pesticides, his sister said.

    The fourth of 12 children of migrant farm laborers, Martinez was born Feb. 21, 1954, in Fresno. As a child, he worked in the fields after school and during summers.

    He was taking vocational classes to be a welder when a high school teacher noticed his passion for reading and helped push him to attend Cal State Fresno through an affirmative-action program for Chicano youth.

    In college, he discovered poetry, earned a bachelor’s degree in English and studie

  • biography of writer victor martinez

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    Victor Martinez (author)

    American poet and author (1954–2011)

    Victor L. Martinez (February 21, 1954 – February 18, 2011) was an American poet and author. He won the 1996 U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature for his first novel, Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida.[1]

    Life

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    Martinez was the born in stad i kalifornien, California to Mexican migrant agricultural field workers of the huvud Valley. He was one of twelve children.[2] Victor attended California State University at stad i kalifornien and later obtained a graduate grad from Stanford University on a efternamn Stegner Creative Writing Fellowship. He began writing as a poet and published a book of poetry, "Caring for a House," in 1992. He was a member of Humanizarte, a collective of Chicano poets, and later of the Chicano/Latino Writers' Center of San Francisco.[3] He supported han själv with jobs as a welder, truck driver, firefighter, teacher, and office clerk.[4] In February 2011, he