Francisco Goldman
Francisco Goldman (born 1954) is an American novelist, journalist, and Allen K. Smith Professor of Literature and Creative Writing, Trinity College. His most recent novel, Monkey Boy (2021), was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Francisco Goldman

Larry D. Moore · CC BY 4.0
- Name
- Francisco Goldman
- Born
- 1954
- Birthplace
- Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
- Occupation
- Novelist, journalist
- Spouse
- Aura Estrada
- Education
- Hobart College University of Michigan (BA) The New School New York University
- Nationality
- United States · Guatemala
- Fields
- literature · literary activity · creative writing · translating activity
- Honours
- Guggenheim Fellowship · Index Award · Prix Femina étranger · Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction · Berlin Prize
- Languages
- American English · Spanish · English
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Documentary summary
Francisco Goldman (born 1954) is an American novelist, journalist, and Allen K. Smith Professor of Literature and Creative Writing, Trinity College. His most recent novel, Monkey Boy (2021), was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
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Francisco Goldman (born 1954) is a journalist, novelist and university teacher, among other activities and a national of Guatemala and the United States. The journalist was born in Boston.
Francisco Goldman studied at University of Michigan. The journalist worked for Brooklyn College and is a member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Francisco Goldman is active in creative writing, literary activity and literature.
Languages used include American English, English and Spanish. The journalist received Berlin Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship and Index Award, among others.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 27 September 2026
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In this article
Biography
Biography
Francisco Goldman studied at University of Michigan. The recorded working language is American English, Spanish and English. The field of work recorded is literature, literary activity and creative writing. Employment is recorded with Brooklyn College. Distinctions recorded are Guggenheim Fellowship, Index Award, Prix Femina étranger and Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction.
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Francisco Goldman • Born — 1954 • Birthplace — Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. • Occupation — Novelist, journalist • Spouse — Aura Estrada • Education — Hobart College University of Michigan (BA) The New School New York University
Life
Life
Francisco Goldman was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a Catholic Guatemalan mother and Jewish-American father. Goldman attended Hobart College, the University of Michigan and the New School for Social Research Seminar College. He studied translation at New York University, and is fluent in English and Spanish. He has taught at Columbia University in the MFA program; Brooklyn College; the Institute of New Journalism (founded by Gabriel García Márquez) in Cartagena, Colombia; Mendez Pelayo Summer Institute in Santander, Spain; the North American Institute in Barcelona, Spain. He has been a resident of UCross Foundation. Francisco Goldman was awarded the Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fellowship for Fiction, and has been a Guggenheim Fellow, and a 2010 Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. He has written for The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, Harper's and many other publications. He divides his time between Brooklyn and Mexico City; teaches creative writing and literature at Trinity College; and directs the Aura Estrada Prize.
Career
Career
Francisco Goldman has published five novels and one book of non-fiction. His most recent novel is Monkey Boy, published in 2021 and a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His prior novel, Say Her Name, was published in April 2011. His first novel, The Long Night of White Chickens (1992), won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction. His subsequent novels have been finalists for several prizes, including The Pen/Faulkner and the International Dublin Literary Award. The Art of Political Murder won The Index on Censorship T.R. Fyvel Book Award, The WOLA/Duke Human Rights Book Award, and has been shortlisted for the 2012 Ryszard Kapuscinski International Award for Literary Reportage. Say Her Name, in its French translation, won the 2011 Prix Femina Etranger. In November 2007, Goldman acted as guest-fiction editor for Guernica Magazine. The Ordinary Seaman was named one of the 100 Best American Books of the Century by The Hungry Mind Review. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1998 and has been a fellow at the Cullman Center at the New York Public Library. His books have been translated and published in a total of 15 languages worldwide. In the 1980s, Goldman covered the wars in Central America as a contributing editor to Harper's magazine. Goldman's 2007 book, The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop?, is a nonfiction account of the assassination of Guatemalan Catholic Bishop Juan José Gerardi Conedera by the Guatemalan military. The book, an expansion on his article in The New Yorker, represents the culmination of years of journalistic investigation. It was selected as a New York Times Notable Book, and a Best Book of the Year at Washington Post Book World, The Economist, The Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Daily News. The book has been widely acclaimed. The book is the winner of the 2008 TR Fyvel Freedom of Expression Book Award from the Index on Censorship and of the 2008 Duke University-WOLA (Washington Office on Latin America) Human Rights Book Prize. It was shortlisted for the 2008 Golden Dagger Award in non-fiction and for the inaugural Warwick Prize for Writing. The paperback edition was published with an Afterword meant to rebut critics in a "disinformation campaign" against the conclusions of the book.
Marriage and family
Marriage and family
Goldman was married to Rebecca (Bex) Brian, the novelist, in the early 1980s. They divorced in 1985. In 2005, Goldman married Aura Estrada, who died in a bodysurfing accident in Mexico in 2007. He established The Aura Estrada Prize in her honor, to be given every two years to a female writer, 35 or under, who writes in Spanish and lives in the United States or Mexico. Goldman wrote about his wife's death and their relationship in the autobiographical novel Say Her Name. He adapted a portion of it as "The Wave," published in the February 7, 2011 edition of The New Yorker.
Works
Works
* * * * * * *
Anthologized
Anthologized
• “Mexico DF” in the Beacon Press Best of 2001. • ”Moro like Me” in Half and Half: Writers on Growing up Biracial and Bicultural.
Translations
Translations
• Two short stories by Gabriel García Márquez in Playboy Magazine, one of which, “The Trail of your *Blood in the Snow,” won that year's National Magazine Award for fiction.
Interviews
Interviews
• "Susan Choi Talks with Francisco Goldman", The Believer, August 2004. • Francisco Goldman talks to Semi Chellas", Brick: A Literary Journal, Winter 2004 (Issue 74). • "Literary Guisado: An Interview with Francisco Goldman" by Marion Winik, The Austin Chronicle, June 6, 1997. • Francisco Goldman discusses his new book "The Divine Husband", NPR Morning Edition, October 27, 2004. • Interview with Francisco Goldman by Whit Coppedge, Pif Magazine, October 30, 2008. *
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Francisco Goldman, revision 1369988797 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Selected journalism, criticism and short fiction
• The New Yorker; New York Times Sunday Magazine; New York Review of Books; Book Forum; Esquire; Bomb • In Mexico: Letras Libres; Gatopardo; Equis. • Prologue to The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll, by Alvaro Mutis, published by New York Review of Books Classics, 2003. • "Murder Comes for the Bishop", The New Yorker, March 15, 1999. • "The Great Bolaño", The New York Review of Books, July 19, 2007. • "Chapter 1: I Drank the Water", New York Times, June 27, 2007. • "THE THOROUGHLY DESIGNED AMERICAN CHILDHOOD; A Robot For the Masses", November 28, 2004. • "In The Shadow Of The Patriarch", New York Times, November 2, 2003. • "Guatemala's Fictional Democracy", New York Times, November 3, 2003. • "The Autumn of the Revolutionary", New York Times, August 23, 1998. • "In Guatemala, All Is Forgotten", New York Times, December 23, 1996 • "In a Terrorized Country", New York Times, April 17, 1995. • "Ending Up in Downsville", (book review) New York Times, June 20, 1993. • "Poetry and Power in Nicaragua", New York Times, March 29, 1987. • Four Op-ed pieces in the New York Times, and two in the Los Angeles Times.
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- “Francisco Goldman”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q3081853: Francisco Goldman
General reference · Wikidata
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Faculty Profiles. Internet2.trincoll.edu.
- 2.Jaggi, Maya. A life in writing: Francisco Goldman. The Guardian. February 2, 2008.
- 3.Monkey Boy, by Francisco Goldman (Grove Press). The Pulitzer Prizes.
- 4.Francisco Goldman. Publishers Weekly. September 2007.
- 5.Goldman, Francisco. The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop?. Grove Press. 2007.
- 6.Aura Estrada Prize.
References
Citations
References
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reference work
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General reference
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 18 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Books
39,529 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Francisco DelicadoAuthor
- Francisco DomeneAuthor
- Francisco Elías de Tejada y SpínolaAuthor
- Francisco Gavidia GarcíaAuthor
- Francisco Gomes de AmorimAuthor
- Francisco González BocanegraAuthor
- Francisco González LedesmaAuthor
- Francisco GranizoAuthor
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