Luis Alberto Urrea was born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and an American mother. He is the author of The Hummingbird’s Daughter, Across the Wire, By the Lake of Sleeping Children, Into the Beautiful North, and the graphic novel Mr. Mendoza’s Paintbrush. The Devil’s Highway, a true story about a group of illegal immigrants, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction. His fiction, poetry, and journalism have also been recognized with a Lannan Literary Award, a Christopher Award, the Kiriyama Prize, an American Book Award, and a Western States Book Award. Urrea lives outside Chicago and is a professor at the University of Illinois.