Hispanic Heritage Month Spotlight: Cristina Henriquez

Adreon Patterson
2 min readSep 26, 2024

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Cristina Henriquez blends her multicultural background to create a unique honesty. Henriquez started life in Delaware with an American mother and a Panamanian father. From a young age, writing was her life as she recalled her childhood Panamanian visits. However, her foray into the written word after an unrequited crush gave her a journal in high school to express her feelings and thoughts. She kept journaling throughout her school career.

Her journal writing led her to attend Northwestern University, where she majored in English. Henriquez continued her writing education by obtaining her MFA from the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her fictional work caught the attention of many literary magazines. She eventually got a story placed in The New Yorker.

After being published in various magazines, Henriquez jumped into the publishing world with her 2006 novella and short story collection Come Together, Fall Apart. Her contributions to the anthologies followed up the collection This is Not Chick Lit and Thirty Ways of Looking at Hilary. She issued her debut novel, The World in Half, in 2009. She followed it up with 2014’s The Book of Unknown Americans, which Amazon and The Daily Beast named to their best novels lists. After a decade from publishing, Henriquez returned in 2024 with The Great Divide, which became a selection for Jenna Bush Hager’s book club.

Her literary work eventually earned the author the 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public Library Foundation.

Cristina Henriquez turned a dormant love for writing into a relatable experience for readers. As she continues to work, her writing proves one’s background can be accessed while allowing others a pique into different cultures and customs. Her works have laid the path for young Latin writers looking to celebrate their culture with reliability. I will say, “Ms. Henriquez, we appreciate you telling your story and others to spread cultural and social awareness.”

A fiction writer’s job is to imagine something whether they are there or not, but it helped. Could I have done it without my personal connection to the place? Hard to say. People want to know if it is based on family — they always want to know that, no matter what you write. I’m trying to understand why it matters how much is autobiographical. But this was a whole cloth invention of characters and trying to imagine what it was like.

Cristina Henriquez

Originally published at http://adreonpatterson.net on September 26, 2024.

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Adreon Patterson
Adreon Patterson

Written by Adreon Patterson

A multi-faceted creator trying to change the world one word at a time. Check out more at https://adreonpatterson.net

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