a major award
Distinguished University of Houston professor wins prestigious Pulitzer Prize
University of Houston professor Cristina Garza has won a Pulitzer Prize
University of Houston professor Cristina Rivera Garza has won a 2024 Pulitzer Prize for "Letters and Drama," the university announced this week. Garza was awarded the prestigious prize for her memoir, Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice.
The book is the story of Garza's return to Mexico City almost 30 years after her younger sister was murdered. It sheds light on issues such as domestic violence, courtroom corruption, and the normalization of gender violence. Pulitzer judges described the book as a “genre-bending account of the author’s 20-year-old sister, murdered by a former boyfriend, that mixes memoir, feminist investigative journalism, and poetic biography stitched together with a determination born of loss.”
“I believe that this award belongs rightfully to Liliana,” Garza said in release. ”This is a book that I wrote with my sister. It’s not just a book about her.”
Garza is the University of Houston's M.D. Anderson Distinguished Professor in Hispanic Studies and director of the Ph.D. program in creative writing in Spanish. She immigrated to the U.S. in 1989 and is an award-winning author of six novels, three collections of short stories, five collections of poetry, and three nonfiction books.
“Christina Rivera Garza’s talents as an educator are unquestionable and her creative energies extend beyond UH’s classrooms into provocative works that resonate with readers from all walks of life,” said Diane Z. Chase, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost. “Earning a Pulitzer not only places her among the world’s top writers but is proof that our students are learning from one of this generation’s most distinct literary voices.”
The Pulitzer Prize is regarded as the highest national honor in journalism, letters and drama, and music.
Garza is also a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship — known colloquially as the "genius grant" — the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize, and a variety of high-profile international literary awards. She was a 2023 finalist for a National Book Award in nonfiction for Liliana’s Invincible Summer.
