John Lantigua

John Lantigua is an American journalist and crime novelist. His journalism awards include the Pulitzer Prize, 1999, for work on voter fraud while at The Miami Herald; the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, 2004 and 2006, and the National Hispanic Journalists Award for Investigative Reporting, 2004 and 2006, for work on immigration issues while writing for The Palm Beach Post. Lantigua is also the author of seven novels, including the a crime series starring Willie Cuesta, a Cuban American private investigator based in Miami.

Early life John Lantigua was born in 1947 in the Bronx to Spanish-speaking parents. His mother was from Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, and his father from Matanzas, Cuba. When Lantigua was four years old, his family moved to Ridgewood, New Jersey, where he learned to speak English. He now has one son and two daughters, Edwina, Ana and Douglas Lantigua. John has three grandchildren: Ella Lantigua, Lela Lantigua, and Clyde Cisneros.

Career Lantigua began his journalism career at The Hartford Courant, the largest newspaper in Connecticut, at age 21. He covered Hartford's large Puerto Rican and Black populations for three years. At age 25, he moved to Oaxaca, Mexico where for two years he worked as a mountain guide in the Sierra Madre, leading camping trips. He later lived two years in the city of Oaxaca where he taught English and theater and was a member of El Grupo Rodolfo Alvarez, the city's municipal theater company.

Publications Lantigua's novel "The Lady from Buenos Aires," Arte Publico, 2007, about the children of the disappeared in Argentina, won the International Latino Book Award for Mystery, 2008, and his novel "On Hallowed Ground," Arte Publico, 2011, about a kidnapping in the Colombian community in Miami, won the same award in 2012. His first novel, "Heat Lightning," Putnam, 1987, about killings in the Salvadoran community in San Francisco, was a finalist for best first novel at the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel. Lantigua's time at the Miami Herald inspired him to start the Willie Cuesta series: Player's Vendetta (1999) The Ultimate Havana (2001) The Lady from Buenos Aires (2007) On Hallowed Ground (2011)

Novellas The Jungle (2017) The Lovers of Traber (2017)

Stand-alone Novels Heat Lightning (1987) Burn Season (1989) Twister (1992)

Non-fiction Smuggled Across the Mexican-U.S. Border (2017)