UH Professor Cristina Rivera Garza Wins 2024 Pulitzer Prize

University of Houston Professor Cristina Rivera Garza has won a 2024 Pulitzer Prize for her memoir “Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice.” The Pulitzer Prize is regarded as the highest national honor in journalism, letters and drama, and music.

Garza, M.D. Anderson Distinguished Professor in Hispanic Studies and director of the Ph.D. program in creative writing in Spanish, won a prize for “Letters and Drama” for her emotionally charged memoir, described by the Pulitzer judges 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.”

The book details Garza’s return to Mexico City almost 30 years after her younger sister was murdered. Garza expertly narrates her journey to shed light on important issues ranging from domestic violence to courtroom corruption to the rising normalization of gender violence.

A photo of the cover of "Liliana's Invincible Summer"

Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Liliana's Invincible Summer"

“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.”

Diane Z. Chase

A portrait of Rivera Garza sitting at an outside table with a notebook.

Cristina Rivera Garza, credit: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Garza said she was surprised by the news of the Pulitzer. “I believe that this award belongs rightfully to Liliana,” said Garza. ”This is a book that I wrote with my sister. It’s not just a book about her.”

“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.”

Garza is an award-winning author of six novels, three collections of short stories, five collections of poetry and three nonfiction books. She emigrated to the United States in 1989.

She is also a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, among a variety of high-profile international literary awards, and was a 2023 finalist for a National Book Award. She uses literature as a medium to speak for those who have been oppressed, striving to spark empathy and a desire for change. Her experiences as an immigrant infuse her writing with raw authenticity and a fresh perspective on the pains, the silence, of marginalization.