Autobiography of My Hungers

Rigoberto Gonzalez, author of the critically acclaimed memoir Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa , takes a second piercing look at his past through a startling new lens: hunger. The need for sustenance originating in childhood poverty, the adolescent emotional need for solace and comfort, the adult desire for a larger world, another lover, a different body--all are explored by Gonzalez in a series of heartbreaking and poetic vignettes. Each vignette is a defining moment of self-awareness, every moment an important step in a lifelong journey toward clarity, knowledge, and the nourishment that comes in various forms--even "the smallest biggest joys" help piece together a complex portrait of a gay man of color who at last defines himself by what he learns, not by what he yearns for. Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement, Publishing Triangle "Told in a series of revealing vignettes and poems, Gonzalez's Autobiography of my Hungers turns moments of need and want into revelations of truth and self-awareness, creating the portrait of an artist that is complex if not entirely complete."-- El Paso Times "Through his provocative vignettes, Gonzalez communicates a lifetime of struggle for affirmation and self-acceptance."-- Make/Shift