Hector Tobar is a Los Angelesauthor and journalist whose work examines the evolving and interdependent relationship between Latin America and the United States. He was born in Guatemala. He is currently a weekly columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Previously, he was the paper's bureau chief in Mexico City and in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He also worked for several years as the National Latino Affairs Correspondent. In 1992, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his work as part of the team covering the L.A. riots for the Los Angeles Times.

He is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz and the MFA program at the University of California, Irvine Creative Writing Program.

Tobar is the author of The Tattooed Soldier, a novel set in the impoverished immigrant neighborhoods of Los Angeles in the weeks before the riots, and in Guatemala during the years of military dictatorship there. His non-fiction Translation Nation: Defining a New American Identity in the Spanish-Speaking United States, is a cross-country journey with stops in many of the new places where Latin American immigrants are settling, including Rupert, Idaho, Grand Island, Nebraska and Memphis, Tennessee.

In 2006, Tobar was named one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics in the United States by Hispanic Business magazine.

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