Meet the Author: Rafael Alvarez

Rafael Alvarez discusses his new collection of fiction, Basilio Boullosa Stars in the Fountain of Highlandtown. Alvarez explores the theme of exile, the heartbreak of leaving and being left behind set to the soundtrack of the Beatles, Dylan, and Zappa. From the East Baltimore immigrants stirring the old country back to life in deep-bellied pots and cast iron skillets to the lovers stroking the relics of lost romance, Alvarez’s characters yearn for the lost and struggle mightily to make memory as tangible as flesh.

A lifelong Baltimorean, Alvarez began publishing poetry during the Ford Administration by rewriting the lyrics to Robin Trower songs. His early pieces appeared in the News-American–a defunct afternoon paper for the city’s working class–and Chicory, a literary magazine published in Baltimore from 1966-to-1983. For twenty years, he worked as a City Desk reporter for the Baltimore Sun, specializing in the folklore of city neighborhoods. He quit the paper in 2001 to work as a laborer on cable ships and soon after began writing for HBO’s police drama, The Wire. Basilio Boullosa Stars in the Fountain of Highlandtown is his fourth volume of fiction.

From National Book Award winner James McBride: “Rafael Alvarez’s talents–poetic deftness, tight dialogue, burning descriptive passages laid out with seeming ease–show why he was one of the gifted writers that turned The Wire into the greatest show in television history. These are stories from the treasure chest of one of America’s most talented scribes, and I am glad he shared them with us.”