Katherine Vaz is a distinguished Luso-American writer and a creative writing professor at Harvard University, where she serves as a Briggs-Copeland Lecturer in Fiction. She was also a Fellow at the prestigious Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (2006\u20132007). Her debut novel, Saudade (St. Martin\u2019s Press, 1994; paperback 1996), was critically acclaimed as the first contemporary novel from a major American publisher to explore the Luso-American experience. It was selected for Barnes & Noble\u2019s Discover Great New Writers series and, upon its release in Portugal in 1999, became an immediate bestseller. Film rights were acquired by Marlee Matlin and Solo One Productions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Literary critic Vamberto Freitas declared that Saudade \u201cwill come to be regarded as the first great ethnic Luso-American novel\u201d and noted that it was the first to receive \u201csignificant attention from the American literary world\u201d (Di\u00e1rio de Not\u00edcias, July 4, 1996). Luso-Americano, the largest Portuguese newspaper in the U.S., stated, \u201cKatherine Vaz is the only Luso-American writer, and the only author in the United States addressing the theme of Portuguese emigration, to see her books published by major publishing houses.\u201d Yale University Professor K. David Jackson considered her work \u201ca major contribution to Latino\/Latina\/Hispanic literature in the U.S., and to U.S. minority literature overall.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her second novel, Mariana, has been published in seven editions and six languages, with distribution in over 100 countries. The English edition was released by HarperCollins and acquired by Malcolm Edwards, named UK Editor of the Year in 1996. The Italian edition, published by Rizzoli Press, was one of their lead titles for 1997. Simonetta Bartolini (Il Giornale) praised the book as \u201ca beautiful love story deeply exploring mysticism,\u201d and called it \u201can intensely beautiful and intelligent reflection on the female heart.\u201d Mariana was selected by the U.S. Library of Congress as one of the Top 30 International Books of 1998. Film rights were acquired by Anne Harrison, former Director of Development for Martin Scorsese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After fifteen years of work, her most recent novel, Above the Salt (Flatiron Books\/Macmillan, 2023), was named a Book of the Year by People Magazine, a Top Fifteen Pick by Good Morning America, and a Recommended Read on Goodreads. It received starred reviews from Publisher\u2019s Weekly and Kirkus, and film rights are represented by Rich Green of Gotham Group (Los Angeles). The Portuguese edition was launched with a promotional tour in Lisbon, including TV and radio appearances and a major feature in Di\u00e1rio de Not\u00edcias. A Russian edition is forthcoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1997, Vaz won the Drue Heinz Literature Prize for her short story collection Fado & Other Stories, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. The book was translated into Portuguese in 2002 and received praise from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and The Times Literary Supplement. One story was featured in Best American Horror & Fantasy 1998, and another was named one of the Top 100 American Stories of 1989 (Best American Short Stories 1990).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her second collection, Our Lady of the Artichokes and Other Portuguese-American Stories, won the 2007 Prairie Schooner Book Prize and was published by the University of Nebraska Press. Several stories were finalists for Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize and earned honorable mentions in contests such as the Zoetrope All-Story Fiction Contest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Katherine has also published essays and reviews in The New York Times and The Boston Globe, and contributed to several children\u2019s fiction anthologies from Simon & Schuster and Viking Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among her accolades, she received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, research grants from the University of California, and was a featured speaker at conferences hosted by Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Berkeley, and the U.S. Library of Congress. In 1998, she was appointed by the U.S. President to the official delegation to Expo 98 in Lisbon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She was named one of the 50 most influential people of Portuguese descent in the U.S. in the 20th century by Luso-Americano and honored by PALCUS in 2022 as one of the most influential Luso-American women of all time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Currently, she is recognized as a mentor to a new generation of Lusophone writers through the Disquiet International Literary Conference, held annually in Lisbon. For eight years, she has led the \u201cWriting the Luso Experience\u201d workshop, establishing herself as a central figure in promoting contemporary Luso-American literature and serving as a bridge between the Portuguese and English-language literary worlds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Katherine Vaz has been Portugal’s World Advisor since May 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":24956,"template":"","meta":[],"grupo":[281],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n