Background
Ethnicity:
His mother was Guatemalan and his father was Jewish-American.
Francisco Goldman was born in 1954 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Geneva, New York, United States
Hobart College
Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States
University of Michigan
New York, United States
New York University
PEN/Faulkner Award (logotype)
International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (logotype)
Prix Femina Etranger (logotype)
(Winner of the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and a f...)
Winner of the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, The Long Night of White Chickens marked the brilliant debut of Francisco Goldman’s internationally acclaimed writing career. The Long Night of White Chickens is a novel born of two worlds: It is the story of Roger Graetz, raised in a Boston suburb by a patrician Guatemalan mother, and his relationship with Flor de Mayo, the beautiful young Guatemalan orphan sent by his grandmother to live with his family as a maid. When, years later in the 1980s, Flor is murdered in Guatemala, Roger returns to uncover the truth of her death. There he is reunited with Luis Moya, a childhood friend, and together they venture on a quest into Flor’s life that will have unexpected, and unforgettable, repercussions. Winner of the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, The Long Night of White Chickens marked the brilliant debut of Francisco Goldman’s internationally acclaimed writing career. The Long Night of White Chickens is a novel born of two worlds: It is the story of Roger Graetz, raised in a Boston suburb by a patrician Guatemalan mother, and his relationship with Flor de Mayo, the beautiful young Guatemalan orphan sent by his grandmother to live with his family as a maid. When, years later in the 1980s, Flor is murdered in Guatemala, Roger returns to uncover the truth of her death. There he is reunited with Luis Moya, a childhood friend, and together they venture on a quest into Flor’s life that will have unexpected, and unforgettable, repercussions.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802144608/?tag=2022091-20
1994
(By the author of The Long Night of the White Chickens: A ...)
By the author of The Long Night of the White Chickens: A novel of the perils, passions, and misadventures of a young Nicaraguan sailor trapped in Brooklyn. Named a Best Book of the Year by Newsday, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, the Chicago Tribune, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Publishers Weekly At nineteen, Esteban Gaitan is already a veteran of war. A Sandinista soldier and an avowed communist, Esteban leaves Nicaragua to begin a new life in America. It’s the late 1980s when he, along with fourteen other men, arrive to form the crew of the Urus, a ship docked on a desolate Brooklyn pier. Elias and Mark, the owners of the Urus, hold the men captive, forcing them to work in a vain attempt to make the rotting vessel seaworthy. Without the means to return home, Esteban remains a virtual prisoner, haunted by the loss of the woman he loved during the war. Eventually, he sneaks off the ship, making nocturnal forays into Brooklyn, where he meets Joaquina, a Mexican immigrant who works as a manicurist, and begins to plot his permanent escape. Centering his novel around Esteban, but also telling the stories of his fellow landlocked sailors, Francisco Goldman proves once again that he is “a major talent of great style and soul” (The Miami Herald). “Often very funny . . . Here, a corner of Brooklyn becomes the exotic and foreign experience, and through Esteban’s eyes it is as mysterious and alluring as Tangiers.” —The Dallas Morning News By the author of The Long Night of the White Chickens: A novel of the perils, passions, and misadventures of a young Nicaraguan sailor trapped in Brooklyn. Named a Best Book of the Year by Newsday, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, the Chicago Tribune, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Publishers Weekly At nineteen, Esteban Gaitan is already a veteran of war. A Sandinista soldier and an avowed communist, Esteban leaves Nicaragua to begin a new life in America. It’s the late 1980s when he, along with fourteen other men, arrive to form the crew of the Urus, a ship docked on a desolate Brooklyn pier. Elias and Mark, the owners of the Urus, hold the men captive, forcing them to work in a vain attempt to make the rotting vessel seaworthy. Without the means to return home, Esteban remains a virtual prisoner, haunted by the loss of the woman he loved during the war. Eventually, he sneaks off the ship, making nocturnal forays into Brooklyn, where he meets Joaquina, a Mexican immigrant who works as a manicurist, and begins to plot his permanent escape. Centering his novel around Esteban, but also telling the stories of his fellow landlocked sailors, Francisco Goldman proves once again that he is “a major talent of great style and soul” (The Miami Herald). “Often very funny . . . Here, a corner of Brooklyn becomes the exotic and foreign experience, and through Esteban’s eyes it is as mysterious and alluring as Tangiers.” —The Dallas Morning News
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005012O7Q/?tag=2022091-20
1996
(One of the most talented and award-winning writers of his...)
One of the most talented and award-winning writers of his generation, Francisco Goldman’s third novel, The Divine Husband, appeared to wide and rapturous acclaim. Beginning with a single, possibly scandalous love poem by Jose Marti, Cuba’s greatest revolutionary-poet-hero with an infamous secret love life, The Divine Husband is the story of Maria de las Nieves Moran, a former nun forced out of her convent by a revolution in a Central American capital. While making her way in this metropolis nicknamed The Little Paris,” she enrolls in a writing class taught by Jose Marti, under whose spell Maria de las Nieves and her classmates quickly fall. Soon after, Maria de las Nieves flees her home for New York, where Marti has also relocated -- a crucial interval that shaped Marti’s consciousness. Nearly a century later, an elderly woman in Massachusetts hires a college student to investigate her claim that she is the illegitimate offspring of Marti and Maria de las Nieves. Mixing a lovingly re-created historical past with often hilarious, ironic, and moving conjecture that brings to life an unforgettable heroine and her remarkable collection of friends, nemeses, and rival suitors, The Divine Husband is a magnificent American novel. One of the most talented and award-winning writers of his generation, Francisco Goldman’s third novel, The Divine Husband, appeared to wide and rapturous acclaim. Beginning with a single, possibly scandalous love poem by Jose Marti, Cuba’s greatest revolutionary-poet-hero with an infamous secret love life, The Divine Husband is the story of Maria de las Nieves Moran, a former nun forced out of her convent by a revolution in a Central American capital. While making her way in this metropolis nicknamed The Little Paris,” she enrolls in a writing class taught by Jose Marti, under whose spell Maria de las Nieves and her classmates quickly fall. Soon after, Maria de las Nieves flees her home for New York, where Marti has also relocated -- a crucial interval that shaped Marti’s consciousness. Nearly a century later, an elderly woman in Massachusetts hires a college student to investigate her claim that she is the illegitimate offspring of Marti and Maria de las Nieves. Mixing a lovingly re-created historical past with often hilarious, ironic, and moving conjecture that brings to life an unforgettable heroine and her remarkable collection of friends, nemeses, and rival suitors, The Divine Husband is a magnificent American novel.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008UX8OOI/?tag=2022091-20
2004
(Inspired by the author’s own experience, this is “a beaut...)
Inspired by the author’s own experience, this is “a beautiful love story, and an extraordinary story of loss” (Colm Tóibín). In 2005, celebrated novelist Francisco Goldman married Aura Estrada at a Mexican hacienda. More than twenty years his junior, Aura was a gifted young writer on the cusp of her own brilliant career, and the two were deeply in love. Then, a month before their second anniversary, Aura broke her neck bodysurfing while they were on vacation. Goldman was blamed by Aura’s family—and crippled by his own grief and self-recrimination. In the aftermath of the accident, he wrote Say Her Name, pouring his feelings of love and unspeakable loss into a fictionalized account of their brief time together. Hungry to keep Aura alive in his memory, Goldman collects everything he can about his dead wife. From her childhood and university days in Mexico City with her fiercely devoted mother to her studies at Columbia University, through the couple’s time in New York City and travels to Mexico and Europe, Goldman seeks her essence and grieves her loss, using the writings she left behind as his prism. Filled with “propulsive drama” (The Boston Globe), Say Her Name is a tribute to Aura, who she was and who she would’ve been, that “will transport you into the most primal joy in the human repertoire—the joy of loving” (San Francisco Chronicle). Inspired by the author’s own experience, this is “a beautiful love story, and an extraordinary story of loss” (Colm Tóibín). In 2005, celebrated novelist Francisco Goldman married Aura Estrada at a Mexican hacienda. More than twenty years his junior, Aura was a gifted young writer on the cusp of her own brilliant career, and the two were deeply in love. Then, a month before their second anniversary, Aura broke her neck bodysurfing while they were on vacation. Goldman was blamed by Aura’s family—and crippled by his own grief and self-recrimination. In the aftermath of the accident, he wrote Say Her Name, pouring his feelings of love and unspeakable loss into a fictionalized account of their brief time together. Hungry to keep Aura alive in his memory, Goldman collects everything he can about his dead wife. From her childhood and university days in Mexico City with her fiercely devoted mother to her studies at Columbia University, through the couple’s time in New York City and travels to Mexico and Europe, Goldman seeks her essence and grieves her loss, using the writings she left behind as his prism. Filled with “propulsive drama” (The Boston Globe), Say Her Name is a tribute to Aura, who she was and who she would’ve been, that “will transport you into the most primal joy in the human repertoire—the joy of loving” (San Francisco Chronicle).
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004RPY46K/?tag=2022091-20
2011
(In this New York Times Notable Book, an award-winning wri...)
In this New York Times Notable Book, an award-winning writer undertakes his own investigation into the murder of a Guatemalan bishop. Named a Best Book of the Year by the Washington Post Book World, the Chicago Tribune, the Economist, and the San Francisco Chronicle Two days after releasing a groundbreaking church-sponsored report implicating the military in the murders and disappearances of some two hundred thousand Guatemalan civilians, Bishop Juan Gerardi was bludgeoned to death in his garage. The victim was the country’s leading human rights activist, but the Church quickly realized that it could not rely on police investigators or the legal system to solve the crime. Instead, Church leaders formed their own investigative team: a group of secular young men who called themselves Los Intocables—the Untouchables. Author Francisco Goldman spoke to witnesses no other reporter was able to reach, observing firsthand some of the most crucial developments in this sensational case. Documenting the Latin American reality of mara youth gangs and organized crime, The Art of Political Murder tells the story of Los Intocables and their remarkable fight for justice. “Becoming by turns a little bit Columbo, Jason Bourne and Seymour Hersh, Goldman gives us the anatomy of a crime while opening a window to a misunderstood neighboring country that is flirting with anarchy.” —The New York Times Book Review In this New York Times Notable Book, an award-winning writer undertakes his own investigation into the murder of a Guatemalan bishop. Named a Best Book of the Year by the Washington Post Book World, the Chicago Tribune, the Economist, and the San Francisco Chronicle Two days after releasing a groundbreaking church-sponsored report implicating the military in the murders and disappearances of some two hundred thousand Guatemalan civilians, Bishop Juan Gerardi was bludgeoned to death in his garage. The victim was the country’s leading human rights activist, but the Church quickly realized that it could not rely on police investigators or the legal system to solve the crime. Instead, Church leaders formed their own investigative team: a group of secular young men who called themselves Los Intocables—the Untouchables. Author Francisco Goldman spoke to witnesses no other reporter was able to reach, observing firsthand some of the most crucial developments in this sensational case. Documenting the Latin American reality of mara youth gangs and organized crime, The Art of Political Murder tells the story of Los Intocables and their remarkable fight for justice. “Becoming by turns a little bit Columbo, Jason Bourne and Seymour Hersh, Goldman gives us the anatomy of a crime while opening a window to a misunderstood neighboring country that is flirting with anarchy.” —The New York Times Book Review
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008UX31IW/?tag=2022091-20
2014
Ethnicity:
His mother was Guatemalan and his father was Jewish-American.
Francisco Goldman was born in 1954 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Goldman was educated at the Hobart College, the University of Michigan and the New School for Social Research at the Seminar College. He studied translation at the New York University.
Francisco Goldman published several works of short fiction in Esquire and elsewhere before trying his hand at journalism, writing about Central America in the early 1980s. Goldman worked as a teacher at such educational institutions as the Columbia University, the Brooklyn College, the Institute of New Journalism, the Mendez Pelayo Summer Institute and the North American Institute.
Currently, Goldman has served as a journalist at the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, the Harper's, as well as a contributor to many other publications. He also teaches creative writing and literature at the Trinity College.
He is the author of four novels and one non-fiction book. Goldman’s narratives, including The Long Night of White Chickens and The Ordinary Seaman, often depict characters caught between two cultures, those of the United States and Central America.
(Winner of the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and a f...)
1994(One of the most talented and award-winning writers of his...)
2004(By the author of The Long Night of the White Chickens: A ...)
1996(In this New York Times Notable Book, an award-winning wri...)
2014(Inspired by the author’s own experience, this is “a beaut...)
2011Goldman is a member of the PEN American and the International Committee.
Goldman married Rebecca Brian in the early 1980s. They divorced in 1985. Twenty years later Goldman married Aura Estrada. Unfortunately, she died in a bodysurfing accident in Mexico in 2007.