MEXICO CITY (apro).- Writers such as Silvia Molina and Rosa Beltrán, the Guadalajara International Book Fair, UNAM, INBAL, the Ministry of Culture and even the National Book Foundation of the United States were among the first to celebrate the prestigious Pulitzer Prize awarded to the Mexican writer Cristina Rivera Garza for her book “The Invincible Summer of Liliana.”
The award in its 108th edition was awarded to the author in the ‘Literature’ category related to “Memory or Autobiography”, and immediately authors and the country’s main cultural institutions celebrated the award to Rivera Garza through social networks.
Rivera Garza shares the 2024 Pulitzer in the Literature category with these other authors:
In the “Fiction” area, Jayne Anne Phillips for Night Watch; in “Drama” to Eboni Booth for Primary Trust; in “History” to Jacqueline Jones for No right to an honest living; in “Biography” to Jonathan Eig for King: a life; “Poetry” for Brandon Som for the volume Tripas: Poems; “Nonfiction” for Nathan Thrall for A day in the life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem tragedy; and in “Music” for Tyshawn Sorey for Adagio (for Wadada Leo Smith).
And among the 15 Pulitzer categories related to ‘Journalism’, the media Lookout Santa Cruz stands out, in the area of Reports and Breaking News for its coverage of catastrophic and gradual floods in California, United States.
The Reuters agency received the award in “National Report” for a series of investigations and damages to consumers, workers and laboratory animals related to various Elon Musk factories.
The New York Times won the award for International Reporting Exposing the Widespread Use of Child Labor Among Immigrants. In the “Review” to the film critic Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times, among others, as well as a “Special Mention” to ‘the brave work’ of Palestinian journalists and colleagues who died covering the war in Gaza.
The latter only as a “special mention” has received criticism from Internet users and specialists due to the tireless work required by the war reporter. The full list of winners can be seen here:
Other recognitions
Cristina Rivera Garza, 59-year-old writer, narrator and poet, has received various recognitions for her book “El invincible Verano de Liliana”, which after three decades reconstructs the rich and intense life of Liliana – the author’s sister – , victim of feminicide that occurred on July 16, 1990.
Rivera Garza won the 2021 Villaurrutia Writers for Writers Award for that volume, which she dedicated to her sister:
“This is an award for Liliana Rivera Garza, my younger sister, whom we lost 30 years ago due to sexist violence. She would have liked to share it with all the women who have been cruelly taken from us in Mexico and in the world. I was able to write ‘Liliana’s Invincible Summer’ thanks to the meticulous archive that my sister built during her brief time on Earth.”
The following year, in 2022, he won the Rodolfo Walsh Prize, the oldest award in criminal non-fiction written in Spanish, which was awarded during the “Semana Negra” crime novel festival in Gijón, Spain.
Then, via conference, Rivera Garza stated:
“I am very proud, I am sure that this award will serve to give even greater scope to the call for justice for Liliana’s feminicide, and also to broaden attention to one of the most serious issues of our time, one of the most disturbing tragedies and terrible things of our time, such as femicides. Thank you very much for the literary attention, for the cultural and social attention to this issue.”
Also last year, in 2023, the author joined El Colegio Nacional as a member, and to date she is the first writer in that institution; She commented on that income at FIL Guadalajara:
“I do not take lightly being the first writer member of El Colegio Nacional, especially in a country that has a long tradition of wonderful, intelligent and talented women writers. It is a pride to belong to the same lineage as Rosario Castellanos, Amparo Dávila, María Luisa Puga, Margo Glantz and, younger, Rosa Beltrán or Ana Clavel. However, I hope we do not have to wait, once again, 80 years for another woman writer to become a member of El Colegio Nacional.”
