Rolando Hinojosa-Smith Dead at 93
Romeo Rolando Hinojosa-Smith, an internationally recognized author, poet, and essayist who exploited his life in the Texas Rio Grande Valley to write a series of award-winning novels, has died, according to his family. He was 93.
Hinojosa, who died Tuesday, was best known for his “Klail City Death Trip” series about life and the people in fictional Belken County and Klail City.
Hinojosa-Smith was honored by the National Book Critics Circle with its 2013 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award.
“He was a writer’s writer,” remarked John Morán González, a University of Texas at Austin professor of American and English Literature and a colleague.
He earned his PhD from the University of Illinois in 1969 and received the Alumni Achievement Award from the Illinois Alumni Association in 1998. The university’s Latino/Latina Studies Department renamed its guest lecture series for him in 2006.
“He was a prolific and award-winning author whose books had readers all over the world,” Clarissa Hinojosa wrote on social media. “His writing made him a popular guest lecturer at universities across the Americas, in Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.”
