Herman "HG" Carrillo ‑ an American writer and Assistant Professor of English at George Washington University in Washington, DC – contracted Covid-19 and died on April 20, 2020.
In the 1990s, he began writing as "H. G. Carrillo", and he eventually adopted that identity in his private life as well, claiming to have been a Cuban immigrant who had left Cuba with his family at the age of 7. Carrillo wrote frequently about the Cuban immigrant experience in the United States, including in his only novel, Loosing My Espanish (2004).
Carrillo kept his true identity hidden from even close acquaintances, including his husband, whom he married in 2015. Only after his death did the true details of his life become publicly known, after several members of his family revealed them.
Carrillo was born Herman Glenn Carroll in 1960, in Detroit, to African-American parents who had themselves been born and raised in Michigan, and who made a living as teachers. 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. During this period he began going by the name "Hermán G. Carrillo" and eventually "Hache" ("H" in Spanish); in his public persona he was supposedly born in Havana, Cuba in 1960, and emigrated with his family at the age of 7.
Carrillo received his BA in Spanish and English from DePaul University in Chicago in 2000 and an MFA from Cornell in 2007.
Carrillo was an assistant professor of English at George Washington University. He started teaching at the university level after 2007.
Several publications have included his work, including The Kenyon Review, Conjunctions, The Iowa Review, Glimmer Train, Ninth Letter, and Slice. 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.
Carrillo's first 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.
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.
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),
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.
His published work includes 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) and Abejas Rubias (2004).