The importance of novelist and short-story writer Lionel G. García is his ability to create plausible characters whose pain and joy can be vividly shared by readers. Although he has been writing since the early 1950s, García published his first novel, Leaving Home, in 1985. As a work in progress, it won the 1983 P.E.N. Southwest Discovery prize.

García was born to Gonzalo Guzmán García and Maria Saenz García in 1935 in San Diego, Duval County, Texas. He grew up in San Diego, where he enjoyed a close relationship with his grandparents and the many aunts and uncles who made up his extended family circle. As a child he lived and worked with his grandfather on a ranch near San Diego, herding goats and working in the fields. Later he worked in his father's paint and body...