Edwidge Danticat wins PEN/Malamud prize for lifetime achievement in short story writing

Edwidge Danticat is this year’s winner of the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, a lifetime achievement honor named for the late writer Bernard Malamud.

Danticat, a Haitian-American author who writes often about memory and identity, is known for her novel-in-stories “The Dew Breaker” and for such collections as “Krik? Krak!” and “Everything Inside,” which in 2020 won the Story Prize for outstanding short fiction.

FILE- Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat appears in the Little Haiti neighborhood of Miami on Oct. 18, 2010. Dandicat is this year’s winner of the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, a lifetime achievement honor named for the late Bernard Malamud. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)

“Many of my short stories pay homage to the oral tradition I was steeped in as a child in Haiti and as an immigrant in the United States,” Danticat, 54, said in a statement this week. “The short story has also been a unique space for me to experiment, explore, and grow as a storyteller, which makes this award even more gratifying.”

Previous winners of the Malamud prize include George Saunders, Jhumpa Lahiri and Yiyun Li.

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