H. G. Carrillo facts for kids

H. G. Carrillo (born Herman Glenn Carroll; April 27, 1960 – April 20, 2020) was an American writer and Assistant Professor of English at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. In the 1990s, he began writing as "H. G. Carrillo", and he eventually adopted that identity in his private life as well. Carroll constructed a false claim that he was a Cuban immigrant who had left Cuba with his family at the age of seven; in fact, he was an African-American. Carroll wrote frequently about the Cuban immigrant experience in the United States, including in his only novel, Loosing My Espanish (2004).

Carroll kept his true identity hidden from those close to him, including his husband, whom he married in 2015. Only after his death in April 2020 did the true details of his life become publicly known after members of his family revealed them.

Early life and education

Herman Glenn Carroll was born in 1960 in Detroit to educated, African-American parents who had themselves been born and raised in Michigan. By the 1980s, he had moved to Chicago. After his partner died of complications related to AIDS in 1988, he began writing. During this period, he began going by the name "Hermán G. Carrillo" and eventually "Hache" ("H" in Spanish). In his public persona, he fabricated a storyline in which he was born in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba in 1960, emigrated with his family to Spain at the age of seven, and then emigrated to Michigan. He also claimed to have been a "widely-traveled" child pianist who was "something of a prodigy"; this assertion was also revealed to be false after his death.

Carroll received his B.A. in Spanish and English from DePaul University in Chicago in 2000 and a MFA from Cornell University in 2007.

Career

Using the name Herman Carrillo, Carroll worked as an assistant professor of English at George Washington University. He started teaching at the university level after 2007. He was also the chairman of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. Carroll's works—published under the Carrillo name—have appeared in several publications, including The Kenyon Review, Conjunctions, The Iowa Review, Glimmer Train, Ninth Letter, and Slice.

Loosing My Espanish

Carroll's first and only full-length novel, Loosing My Espanish (Pantheon, 2004), addresses the complexities of Latino immigration, religiously associated education, homosexuality, and lower-class struggles from a Cuban immigrant's perspective. The novel was published under the Carrillo name. Wendy Gimbel at The Washington Post wrote a lengthy review of the novel, saying this about Carroll's writing style:

In this complexly structured novel, Oscar's narrative moves backward and forward, alternating between the present and historical time. If one considers the present moment as a force field that holds together all the disparate elements in the book, a cohesive tale emerges from a seemingly disorderly series of scenes.

Awards

As H.G. Carrillo, Carroll received the Arthur Lynn Andrew Prize for Best Fiction in 2001 and 2003 as well as the Iowa Award in 2004. He received several fellowships and grants, including a Sage Fellowship, a Provost's Fellowship, and a Newberry Library Research Grant. He earned the 2001 Glimmer Train Fiction Open Prize and was named the 2002 Alan Collins Scholar for Fiction.

Death and aftermath

Carroll, who had cancer, died from complications of COVID-19 on April 20, 2020, one week prior to his 60th birthday. After the publication of an obituary in The Washington Post, members of his family in Michigan realized that he had fabricated his identity and informed Carroll's husband and the newspaper accordingly. The discovery of Carroll's fabrication was a shocking surprise to his colleagues as well as his close friends. Carroll's family's reactions varied: some relatives were largely indifferent, with his niece saying that he "was always eccentric," though his mother was "really hurt by the whole façade".

Cuban-Americans' reactions appear to reflect that they had been largely unaware of Carroll. No major Miami newspaper appears to have reported Carroll’s death nor the revelations about his true identity. Following Carroll's death, several Cuban-American writers read some of his writings and found errors in his Spanish, including both spelling errors and the use of non-idiomatic Spanish, such as the slang word pinche (common only in Mexico). F. Lennox Campello wrote that Carroll's stories did not reflect the Cuban immigrant experience, but were instead "a fabricated blending of many Latin American immigration stories, a healthy dose of Hollywood stereotypes, and a disturbing amount of Mexican-flavored dialect slang".

Published works by H.G. Carrillo

Books

• Loosing My Espanish (2004)

Short stories

• Luna (2020)
• Contracorriente (2016)
• Gavage (2013)
• Twilight of the Small Havanas (2010)
• Andalúcia (2008/2009)
• Co-Sleeper (2008)
• Pornografía (2007)
• Elizabeth (2006)
• The Santiago Boy (2006)
• Caridad (2005)
• Cosas (2004)
• Abejas Rubias (2004)

Essays

• Splaining Yourself (2014)
• Who Knew Desi Arnaz Wasn't White?" An Essay (2007)
• ¿Quién se hubiera imaginado que Desi Arnaz no era blanco? (2007)

See also

• List of impostors
• Rachel Dolezal
• Jessica Krug