Oscar Cásares Is an Author Reared on Oral Storytelling

He grew up in a working-class neighborhood of Brownsville, in a home with few books. But Oscar Cásares was surrounded by avid storytellers, including his parents and the aunts, uncles, and neighbors who would drop by almost daily. His three older siblings had moved out of the house by the time he was ten. “I was,” he said, “basically raised as an only child.” So he spent lots of time in the presence of adults, hearing them gossip about friends and relatives, recount family legends, and tell amusing stories from their jobs—as a cattle inspector, say, or a pastor, or a union organizer. Oscar studied the way they crafted their spoken stories. “I had these uncles who would tell the same stories over and over but…

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