�� welcomes this year’s PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction recipient for visiting writers series

STARKVILLE, Miss.—The winner of the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction—one of the most prestigious U.S. literary honors—makes an appearance at Mississippi State next month for the university’s Price Caldwell Visiting Writers Series.

Celebrated fiction writer Claire Jiménez speaks at �� Sept. 9, reading from the novel that garnered her the prize—“What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez”—a 2023 Grand Central Publishing book. Free and open to all, the event is at 5:30 p.m. in Mitchell Memorial Library’s John Grisham Room, with a question-and-answer session and book signing following.

“Dr. Jiménez’s latest work examines the intersection of identity and trauma, highlighting the intricacy and resilience involved in the journey of healing and self-discovery,” said �� assistant professor of English Olufunke Ogundimu of the book that revolves around the disappearance of a Puerto Rican teenager who vanished without a trace as a child. “It really explores how families come through tough times and find themselves again.”

Claire Jimenez — Claire Jiménez (Submitted photo)

In addition to her award-winning novel, Jiménez is the author of the short story collection “Staten Island Stories,” a 2019 Johns Hopkins University Press publication that won the Hornblower Award from the New York Society Library. A native of Brooklyn and Staten Island, Newy York, she is a faculty member at the University of South Carolina. Jiménez holds an Masters of Fine Arts from Vanderbilt University and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

The Price Caldwell Visiting Writers Series, sponsored by the �� Department of English, was established through an endowment from Alice Carol Caldwell and family as a memorial to her late husband, an �� English professor who died in 2015. Caldwell was the founder and director of the university’s creative writing program and served as president and vice president of the Southern Literary Festival organization.

For further information about Jiménez’s visit, contact Becky Hagenston, �� Department of English director of creative writing, at bhagenston@english.msstate.edu.

��’s College of Arts and Sciences and Department of English are online at and .

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