Liliana Colanzi, associate professor of Latin American studies in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S), has won the 2025 Zinklar Award, which honors short story authors. Colanzi’s award is the first Zinklar Prize to honor Spanish language fiction.
“I'm deeply honored and thrilled to receive this award—it came as a complete surprise,” Colanzi said. “I'm grateful to the independent publishing house Silkefyret and to my translators, Sabine Dueholm Bech and Marie Groth Bastiansen, for bringing my stories to Danish readers. I’m also thankful to the Department of Romance Studies at Cornell for their support.”
Colanzi, who is from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, is known for her speculative fiction. She has three full-length short story collections; two have won awards and have been translated into several languages, with her 2022 book, “Ustedes brillan en lo oscuro” (“You Glow in the Dark”), receiving the Ribera de Duero Prize honoring the best short stories in Latin America and Spain.
Her other two collections are “Vacaciones permanentes” and “Nuestro mundo Muerto.” Colanzi won Mexico’s Aura Estrada literary award in 2015 and was named among the best Latin American writers under 40 by the Hay Festival Cartagena in 2017. Her work has appeared in various literary publications, including The New Yorker.
At Cornell, Colanzi teaches Latin American literature and creative writing in Spanish, receiving the 2024 Robert and Helen Appel Fellowship for Humanists and Social Scientists, which recognizes faculty excellence.
The Zinklar Award, given by the Danish Writers Association, was awarded for the first time in 2013 to Danish writer Klaus Rifbjerg. Since, it has been presented to British writer Julian Barnes, Americans Lydia Davis and Lorrie Moore, Bulgarian Giorgi Gospodinov and Israeli Etgar Keret, among others.
More News from A&S
