Rolando Hinojosa (1929 – April 20, 2022) was an American author, essayist, poet, and Ellen Clayton Garwood Professor in the University of Texas at Austin’s English Department. He died at the age of 93.

He grew up in Mercedes, Texas, and was born in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas to a family with strong Mexican and American origins.

Rolando-Hinojosa-Smith
Rolando Hinojosa was an American author, essayist, poet, and professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He died at the age of 93.

His father fought in the Mexican Revolution, while his mother took care of the family on the other side of the border. Hinojosa was a voracious reader as a youngster and was reared speaking Spanish until junior high when English became the dominant language.

Hinojosa has spent most of his writing career in his Klail City Death Trip Series, which currently includes 15 volumes, ranging from Estampas del Valle y otras obras (1973) to We Happy Few (2001). (2006).

Through this generational tale, he has entirely inhabited a fictitious county in Texas’ lower Rio Grande Valley. Hinojosa has translated his own novels and authored others in English while preferring to write in Spanish.

For Klail City y sus alrededores (Klail City), part of the series, Hinojosa was the first Chicano author to win the coveted Premio Casa de las Américas prize. For his work Estampas del Valle y otras obras, he got the third and last Premio Quinto Sol Annual Prize (1972).