The Devil's Highway Sparknotes

The author of the book The Devil's Highway: A True Story, is Luis Alberto Urrea, who was born in Tijuana, Mexico in 1955. Urrea grew up in poverty and was raised in California, his father is Mexican and his mother American. (Urrea, 2017) Urrea graduated from the University of California and completed the graduate program at the University of Colorado. He has written 16 books and also writes poetry. Correspondingly, the book The Devil’s Highway: A True Story, won the Lannan Literary Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Pacific Rim Kiriyama Prize. Other books of his have also won prizes like the Christopher Award, and an Edgar Award for the best short story in the genre mystery. Also, Urrea is a part of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame. His books are used in college classrooms across the country, he has taught at Harvard University and Louisiana State University. (Urrea, 2017)

Depicting a group of people lost, with no water, in the heat of the sun, hoping to find either a civilization or a water source, but not just any group of people, the Yuma 14. The Yuma 14 are a group of immigrant men who died on the devil’s highway, twelve others survived. Then moves into a very brief history of Spanish colonialism, and the civil war, and everything in between. Also including various stories, for example, the Sand Papagos who had an appetite for human meat specifically Mexican. As well as other apparitions in the desert like the white woman or the blue woman who would taunt people, and the endless deaths that have occurred, and will continue to occur. Then focusing on the border patrol agents, who enjoy messing with the immigrants when they can. An example of that would be the agent who pretended to shoot and kill a rabbit from miles away, amusing everyone because the immigrants believed