Gregory Orfalea, Ph.D. is author of the new biography of Blessed Junipero Serra, Journey to the Sun, an authoritative and incisive picture of a man whose story is as essential to the founding of our nation as the stories of Plymouth Rock and Jamestown. Dr. Orfalea was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA, and educated at Georgetown University and the University of Alaska. He is the author or editor of eight books, the most recent of which are The Man Who Guarded the Bomb (2010) and Angeleno Days (2009).
The recipient of many awards for his writing, Orfalea’s Angeleno Days won the 2010 Arab American Book Award and was named a Finalist for the PEN USA Award in Creative Nonfiction. He has taught at the Claremont Colleges, Georgetown University, and Westmont College. Kirkus Reviews has this to say about Journey to the Sun: “A California story becomes an American story . . .a doggedly researched and fulsomely argued biography.”