Upland resident and California State University, Los Angeles and Mt. San Antonio College Spanish professor Pablo Baler was recently awarded the 2025 New American Fiction Prize for his forthcoming novel, “Gilroy’s Gloryhole,” on New American Press.

“It’s humbling to be recognized with the New American Fiction Prize,” Baler wrote in a statement. “It’s not just any award, but a recognition granted by a publisher committed to uncompromising literary fiction. They publish the types of novels I enjoy reading — novels that take risks and experiment with language and form.”

Originally from Argentina, Baler previously wrote primarily in Spanish. He described his debut English novel as a “screwball tragedy.”

“Most of the narrative work I’ve written has been in Spanish, but after 30 years of living in the U.S., certain images and ideas for a Los Angeles-based story began surfacing,” Baler wrote. “And they only made sense in English. The challenges of writing a novel in a language that isn’t your native language can be deeply generative.”