H. G. Carrillo

H. G. "Hache" Carrillo (born Herman Glenn Carroll; April 27, 1960 – April 20, 2020)[2][3] was an American[4] writer and Assistant Professor of English at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.[5] In the 1990s, he began writing as "H. G. Carrillo", and he eventually adopted that identity in his private life as well, constructing a false claim to have been a Cuban immigrant who had left Cuba with his family at the age of 7, when in fact he was an African-American.[6] Carrillo wrote frequently about a fictional Cuban immigrant experience in the United States, including in his only novel, Loosing My Espanish (2004).

H. G. Carrillo
Born
Herman Glenn Caroll

(1960-04-27)April 27, 1960
Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
DiedApril 20, 2020(2020-04-20) (aged 59)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Other namesH. G. Carrillo
Hache[1]
Alma materDePaul University
Cornell University
Occupation
  • Novelist
  • academic
Years active2004–2020

Carrillo kept his true identity hidden from even close acquaintances, including his husband,[7] whom he had married in 2015. Only after his death in April 2020 did the true details of his life become publicly known, after several members of his family revealed them.[2][8][9]

Early life and education

Carrillo was born Herman Glenn Carroll in 1960, in Detroit, to educator, African-American parents who had themselves been born and raised in Michigan. By the 1980s he had moved to Chicago, and after his partner died of complications related to AIDS in 1988, he began writing and devoted his life to it.[2] 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 where he was supposedly born in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, in 1960,[10] and emigrated with his family at the age of 7, first to Spain and then to Michigan.[11] He additionally claimed to have been a "widely-traveled" child pianist who was described as "something of a prodigy," but this was also revealed to be false after his death.[2]

Carrillo received his BA in Spanish and English from DePaul University in Chicago in 2000 and an MFA from Cornell University in 2007.[12]

Career

Carrillo was an assistant professor of English at George Washington University.[12] He started teaching at the university level after 2007.[13] He was also the chairman of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation.[14]

Publications

Several publications have included his work, including The Kenyon Review, Conjunctions, The Iowa Review, Glimmer Train, Ninth Letter, and Slice.[15] Areas of interest include fiction writing, U.S. Latino literature and visual culture, literature and culture of the 1960s, 20th- and 21st-century US literature, and gender studies.[5]

Loosing My Espanish

Carrillo'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.

Wendy Gimbel at The Washington Post wrote a lengthy review of this novel, saying this about Carrillo's interesting 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.

— Gimbel, 2005[16]

Cuban-American reviewer asombra, in reviewing the same book years later had a different opinion of "Carrillo's interesting writing style":[17]

The persistent use throughout of Carroll’s idea of Spanglish, continually peppering the text with Spanish words and phrases, almost as if done by artificial intelligence. The protagonist, a Chicago school teacher, uses it routinely even at his job with students, which is highly implausible. It feels like a gimmick and quickly becomes tiresome, but again, the novel was not aimed at Cubans, and some reviewers were taken by it as “inventive” and producing “beautiful effects.” The problem is that it’s not real Spanglish but something applied in an annoyingly clunky way, which ultimately feels artificial, calculated and contrived—obviously for “literary” effect, but maybe also as overcompensation for being neither Cuban nor Hispanic.

— asombra, 2020[18], ‘Cuban’ by appropriation: The strange case of H. G. Carrillo

Synopsis: "Oscar Delossantos is about to lose his job as a teacher at a Jesuit high school in Chicago. Rather than go quietly, he embarks on a valiant last history lesson that chronicles the flight from Cuba of his makeshift extended family. Evoking the struggle between nostalgia and the realities of the Cuban Revolution with both grit and lyricism, he inspires his students with an altogether dazzling reinterpretation of the Cuban-American experience." (Random House, Inc. 2005)[19]

Short stories

Cuban-American critic F. Lennox Campello, in reviewing "Cosas" (2004), also took issues with Carroll's authenticity and finds clues in his misuse of Cuban slang Spanish:[20]

I'm on page 2, and it is clear to the most casual observer that this impostor is not Cuban - at least through his writing, which uses Spanish words like "pinche" and "vatos" that are NOT part of Cuban slang (not to mention that he misspells "cerveza" as "cervesa" … Page 36: The cursing here is Google Spanish... makes me cringe that somehow this passed as Cuban cursing... any reader of Cuban ancestry would immediately start dialing numbers in Hialeah.

— F. Lennox Campello, 2020, The Curious Case of the Fake Cuban or "The curious and disgusting case of H.G. Carrillo"

Awards

Carrillo received the Arthur Lynn Andrew Prize for Best Fiction in 2001 and 2003 as well as the Iowa Award in 2004. He has 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.[21]

Death and aftermath

Carillo died from complications of COVID-19 on April 20, 2020, a week prior to his 60th birthday.[2] After the publication of an obituary in The Washington Post, members of his family in Michigan realized that he had fabricated his identity, and disclosed this to Carroll's husband and the newspaper.[2][8] The discovery that Carrillo was in fact Carroll, and had invented his Afro-Cuban ancestry, was a shocking surprise to both his colleagues, as well as his close friends,[9] and the reactions ranged from somewhat apologetic,[9] to condemnation of the fabrication.[22] His family's reactions were also 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."[2][7]

Cuban-Americans' reactions appear to reflect that they had been largely unaware of Carrillo's writing, and the post-death discovery that Carrillo had passed himself as a member of the Cuban-American community, and no major Miami newspaper appears to have reported Carroll’s death nor the revelations about his true identity.[17]

Published work

Books
  • Loosing My Espanish (2004)

Short stories
  • Andalúcia" Conjunctions (2008/2009)
  • Co-Sleeper (2008)
  • Who Knew Desi Arnaz Wasn't White?" An Essay. (2007)
  • ¿Quién se hubiera imaginado que Desi Arnaz no era blanco? (2007)
  • Pornografía (2007)
  • Elizabeth (2006)
  • The Santiago Boy (2006)
  • Caridad (2005)
  • Cosas (2004)[23]
  • Abejas Rubias (2004)[24]

See also

References
  1. "Aanmelden bij Facebook".
  2. Duggan, Paul. "Cuban American author H.G. Carrillo, who explored themes of cultural alienation, dies after developing covid-19". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 24, 2020.
  3. "Obituary, PEN/Faulkner Foundation". Retrieved April 23, 2020 – via Twitter.
  4. Unbecoming Blackness: The Diaspora Cultures of Afro-Cuban America by Antonio M. López
  5. "Carrillo | English Department - The George Washington University". Departments.columbian.gwu.edu. Retrieved December 4, 2013.
  6. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/famed-latino-writer-hg-carillo-exposed-as-glenn-from-detroit/news-story/0f986abede3445b63fe5c1ae9756e48b
  7. Dillon, Nancy. "Coronavirus death of 'Cuban-American' novelist H.G. Carrillo reveals surprising truth to husband, fans". New York Daily News. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
  8. Jackson, Lauren Michele. "The Layered Deceptions of Jessica Krug, the Black-Studies Professor Who Hid That She Is White". The New Yorker. Retrieved September 13, 2020.
  9. Page, Lisa. "Perspective | When writer Hache Carrillo died, the world discovered his true identity. What does that mean for his legacy?". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
  10. "Tribute to Herman "Hache" (H.G.) Carrillo". Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
  11. Pavia, Will (May 27, 2020). "H G Carrillo: fans grieve after dead Latino writer is exposed as Glenn from Detroit". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
  12. http://english.columbian.gwu.edu/herman-carrillo Archived February 12, 2015, at the Wayback Machine Herman Carrillo, English Department, The George Washington University. Retrieved February 12, 2015.
  13. "News from Trinity University". Trinity.edu. November 1, 2005. Retrieved December 4, 2013.
  14. Duggan, Paul (May 26, 2020). "'Cuban' writer H.G. Carrillo, who explored themes of cultural alienation, dies at 59 - The Boston Globe". The Boston Globe. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
  15. "H G Carrillo". Stuartbernstein.com. Retrieved December 4, 2013.
  16. "Dreaming in Cuban". washingtonpost.com. January 16, 2005. Retrieved December 4, 2013.
  17. Asombra (July 18, 2020). "On not keeping it real (and other inconsistencies)". babalublog.com. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
  18. . November 3, 2020 https://babalublog.com/2020/11/03/cuban-by-approprriation-the-strange-case-of-h-g-carrillo/. Retrieved November 5, 2020. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  19. "loosing my espanish - Random House". Retrieved December 4, 2013.
  20. "The Curious Case of the Fake Cuban". Artwork and Writing of F. Lennox Campello. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
  21. "H.G. Carrillo Author Bookshelf - Random House - Books - Audiobooks - Ebooks". Random House. Retrieved December 4, 2013.
  22. Culture (May 28, 2020). "Writer Pretends To Be Hispanic, Gets Excused Because He's A Democrat". The Federalist. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
  23. Carrillo, H. (December 1, 2004). "Cosas". The Iowa Review. 34 (3): 25–40. doi:10.17077/0021-065X.5885. ISSN 0021-065X.
  24. "Selections | Journal". The Kenyon Review. Retrieved January 8, 2021.
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