H. G. Carrillo

H. G. Carrillo (born Herman Glenn Carroll; April 26, 1960 – April 20, 2020) was an American fiction writer and academic. In the 1990s, he began writing as "H. G. Carrillo" and he eventually adopted that identity in his private life as well. Carroll constructed a false claim that he was a Cuban immigrant who had left Cuba with his family at the age of seven. In fact, he had no ties to Cuba.

Background Herman Glenn Carroll was born on April 26, 1960, in Detroit to educated African American parents who had themselves been born and raised in Michigan. By the 1980s, he had moved to Chicago. After his partner died of complications related to AIDS in 1988, he began writing. emigrated with his family to Spain at the age of seven, and then emigrated to the Midwest. He also claimed to have been a "widely-traveled" child pianist who was "something of a prodigy"; this assertion was also revealed to be false after his death.

Carroll was married to entomologist Dennis vanEngelsdorp, and they lived in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Berwyn Heights, Maryland. He was also the chairman of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. Carroll's works—published under the Carrillo name—have appeared in several publications, including The Kenyon Review, Conjunctions, The Iowa Review, Glimmer Train, Ninth Letter, and Slice. He was popular with his students, and believed he would receive academic tenure, but he left the faculty in 2013 after the university declined to renew his contract due to a lack of publishing activity.

Awards As H. G. Carrillo, Carroll received the Arthur Lynn Andrew Prize for Best Fiction in 2001 and 2003 as well as the Iowa Award in 2004. He received several fellowships and grants, including a Sage Fellowship, a Provost's Fellowship, and a Newberry Library Research Grant. He earned the 2001 Glimmer Train Fiction Open Prize and was named the 2002 Alan Collins Scholar for Fiction.

Death and aftermath Carroll was undergoing treatment for prostate cancer in the last months of his life. The illness and the severe side effects of his medication caused a steep decline in his health. Carroll's family had varied reactions: his sister said that he was "very talented" but "always eccentric", though she added that their mother, who died in 2015, had been aware of his fabrications and was "really hurt by the whole façade". Following Carroll's death, several Cuban American writers read some of his writings and found errors in his Spanish, including both spelling errors and the use of non-idiomatic Spanish, such as the slang word pinche (common only in Mexico). F. Lennox Campello wrote that Carroll's stories did not reflect the Cuban immigrant experience, but were instead "a fabricated blending of many Latin American immigration stories, a healthy dose of Hollywood stereotypes, and a disturbing amount of Mexican-flavored dialect slang".

On March 24, 2023, The New Yorker Radio Hour released an episode about the aftermath of Carroll's death, including interviews with his husband and family, as well as former mentor Helena Maria Viramontes.

Published works

Books Loosing My Espanish (2004)

Short stories "Luna" (2020) "Contracorriente" (2016) "Gavage" (2013) "Twilight of the Small Havanas" (2010) "Andalúcia" (2008/2009) "Co-Sleeper" (2008) "Pornografía" (2007) "Elizabeth" (2006) "The Santiago Boy" (2006) "Caridad" (2005) "Cosas" (2004) "Abejas Rubias" (2004)

Essays "Splaining Yourself" (2014) ""Who Knew Desi Arnaz Wasn't White?" An Essay" (2007) "¿Quién se hubiera imaginado que Desi Arnaz no era blanco?" (2007)