Background

Abraham Rodriguez was born in New York City, United States.

Education

Abraham completed an undergraduate degree at City College of New York.

Career

During his university period, Abraham began writing short stories and received the first prize in the Goodman Fund Short Story Awards competition three consecutive years. Before long he began to receive requests to publish his short narratives in the journal Story Quarterly and in the anthology Best Stories from New Writers.

His first collection of short stories, The Boy Without a Flag: Tales of the South Bronx, was published in 1992. This realistic depiction of ghetto life and the influence it had in the author’s life during his formative years, allowed Rodriguez to come to grips with the identity crisis experienced by many second-generation Puerto Ricans in a society afflicted by racial prejudice, poverty, and violence.

The author’s outrage and frustration toward the inability of many Puerto Ricans to overcome the destructive effects of poverty and racism in the United States and the colonial status of Puerto Rico underlines most of his writings to date. In Rodriguez’s second book publication, the novel Spidertown, the “mean streets” of New York resurface once again. It has also appeared in British, Dutch, German, and Spanish editions. Spidertown has been optioned by Columbia Pictures. His third novel, The Buddha Book, continues to focus the turbulent daily life and survival struggles of adolescents in the South Bronx, described in the novel as “the place where young kids faded into brick like old TAGS under whitewashed walls.” Rodriguez's most recent novel, titled South by South Bronx, was published in 2008.

His short fiction has appeared in Story Magazine, The Sycamore Review, The Chattahoochie Review, Snakeskin, and Alternative Fiction and Poetry and has been included in several anthologies, including Bronx Noir, Best Stories From New Writers, Iguana Dreams, and Cowboys, Indians and Commuters edited by Jay McInerney.

In 2001 Abraham moved to Berlin, and, in 2006, began doing script translations. Since then he has translated more than 19 scripts, 14 of them seeing production. As a musician, he is the founding member, guitarist, and singer for the Berlin-based punk-rock band Urgent Fury.

Achievements

• Abraham Rodriguez is a prolific short stories writer. His best known work is the novel Spidertown, which was winner of an American Book Award in 1995.

Works

More photos

• book

  • South by South Bronx

    (When Puerto Rican ladies’ man Alex awakes one morning to ...)

    2008
  • The Buddha Book: A Novel

    (Dinky, Jose, and Barbara are teens living in the Bronx. D...)

    2001
  • Boy Without a Flag 1999

References

• Contemporary Authors
  2008