Chipotle Mexican Grill has announced that it is including three Latino writers in the second installment of its “Cultivating Thought” author series. Julia Alvarez, Paulo Coelho, and Carlos Ruiz Zafron will be among the writers whose work will be featured on Chipotle’s cups and bags.
The series began in May 2014, in partnership with New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Eating Animals, Everything is Illuminated), who curated the series from the beginning. The stories published on Chipotle’s cups and bags are meant to entertain while exposing readers to some of today’s most creative, influential and thought-provoking writers. Each cup and bag will also include unique illustrations commissioned from a range of artists.
Chipotle’s progressive approach to food and culture continues to disrupt the traditional fast food experience. This new installment of authors represent a global perspective, including Brazilian, British, Dominican and Spanish writers, as well as American writers whose families are of Chinese, Polish and Indian descent. This author group also boasts a Pulitzer Prize winner, a world-record holder, box office successes, and a sold-out stand-up comedy show at Madison Square Garden, among other distinctions.
“While typical fast food companies use their packaging to promote new menu items or sell the space to advertisers, we have always tried to use our packaging to engage with our customers wit and intellect,” said Mark Crumpacker, chief marketing and development officer at Chipotle. “Given the response we had to the first round of the ‘Cultivating Thought’ series, we are continuing the series with more authors we think our customers will enjoy.”
The list of contributors for the second installment of “Cultivating Thought” includes:
- Julia Alvarez – Poet and novelist, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, In the Time of the Butterflies
- Aziz Ansari – Actor and comedian, “Parks and Recreation”
- Augusten Burroughs – New York Times bestselling author, Running with Scissors
- Paulo Coelho – Novelist and world record-holder (most translated book by a living author), The Alchemist
- Jeffrey Eugenides – Pulitzer Prize winning author, Middlesex, The Virgin Suicides
- Neil Gaiman – Novelist, graphic novelist and screenwriter, The Sandman, The Graveyard Book, Coraline
- Walter Issacson – Author and biographer, The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, Steve Jobs
- Barbara Kingsolver - New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize finalist, The Poisonwood Bible, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
- Amy Tan – Bestselling author, The Joy Luck Club
- Carlos Ruiz Zafron – Novelist, El Príncipe de la Niebla (The Prince of Mist)
Each writer’s work will be featured on a cup or bag in Chipotle’s restaurants. The essays are themed as “two-minute” readings, and vary in topic and focus, representing the diversity of talent and range of perspectives of these 10 writers.
The new “Cultivating Thought” packaging will be available in Chipotle restaurants in the coming weeks, and all 10 stories are accessible online at chipotle.com/cultivatingthought.