The Puerto Rican Literature Project

Giannina Braschi was born in 1953, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She holds a PhD in Hispanic literature from the State University of New York, Stony Brook. Her works include The Empire of Dreams (1988), Yo-Yo Boing! (1998), United States of Banana (2011), and PUTINOIKA (Brown Ink, 2024). A collection of essays on her work, Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi (Latinx and Latin American Profiles, 2020), was edited by Frederick Luis Aldama and Tess O'Dwyer, with a foreword by Ilan Stavans. She received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the PEN American Center, the Ford Foundation, El Diario/LA PRENSA, the Danforth Scholarship, InterAmericas, the Reed Foundation, and el Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña. Braschi has received numerous lifetime achievement awards, including the 2021 Cambio16 Prize in Madrid, the 2022 National Award Enrique Anderson Imbert from the North American Academy of the Spanish Language, the 2024 Angela Y. Davis Award from the American Studies Association, the 2025, and honors from her hometown of San Juan. She also received the 2024 Borimix Prize along with Sonia Manzano and Willie Perdomo, and was named Woman of the Year 2025 by the former President of Ecuador Rosalia Arteaga alongside Carmen Boullosa and Cecilia Vicuña. PEN America has called Braschi “one of the most revolutionary voices in Latin American literature today.” 

Works Cited

Braschi, Giannina. Interview. Conducted by Claire Jimenez, 1 Dec. 2021.

“Giannina Braschi.” Academy of American Poets, https://poets.org/poet/giannina-braschi.

“Giannina Braschi.” PEN America, https://pen.org/profile/giannina-braschi/.

“Hispanic Writer Giannina Braschi Wins Lifetime Achievement Prize.” PR Newswire, 12 Nov. 2024, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hispanic-writer-giannina-braschi-wins-lifetime-achievement-prize-834726886.html.

O’Dwyer, Tess. “Giannina Braschi/Puerto Rican literature project.” Email to Katerín P. Zapata. 10 Dec. 2025.