Alberto Alvaro Ríos was born and raised in the border town of Nogales, Arizona, the son of a Mexican father and an English mother. His life, from the beginning, was rich with the stories, languages and traditions of two cultures and the living perspective of three countries. He could literally stand on the border with one foot in Mexico and the other foot in the United States.
Today Ríos is an acclaimed poet and a professor of creative writing. His work is colored with the cultures of Mexico and England and America, the languages of Spanish and English, and the characters of time and place from childhood, adolescence, and mid-life.
Ríos is the author of nine books and chapbooks of poetry, three collections of short stories, and a memoir. His book The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body was a finalist for the National Book Award. His memoir about growing up on the Mexico-Arizona border—called Capirotada—won the Latino Literary Hall of Fame Award.
Ríos is a Regents' Professor at Arizona State University, where he has taught for 25 years. Read more about Ríos and his writing in "Discovering the alphabet of life."
Listen to selected readings (aif files):
A Marrow of Water, The Theater of the Night, 2007Lisandro Speaks but Inside Himself to his Wife,The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body, 2002 (text)
Refugio's Hair, The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body, 2002