Katherine Vaz (born August 26, 1955) is a Portuguese-American writer. A Briggs-Copeland Fellow in Fiction at
Harvard University (2003–2009), a 2006–2007 Fellow of the
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study,[1] and the Fall, 2012 Harman Fellow at Baruch College in New York,[2] she is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Above the Salt, which was chosen as one of People Magazine's Best New Books to Read in November, 2023.[3]
Vaz's novel Saudade (St. Martin’s Press, 1994) is the first contemporary novel about Portuguese-Americans from a major New York publisher. It was optioned by Marlee Matlin/Solo One Productions and selected in the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers series.[4]
Her novel, Mariana, (HarperCollins, 1997), was selected by the Library of Congress as one of the Top 30 International Books of 1998 and has been translated into six languages.[1]
Vaz is a recipient of a Literature Fellowship from the
National Endowment for the Arts (1993) [7] and the Davis Humanities Institute Fellowship (1999). She has been named by the Luso-Americano as one of the Top 50 Luso-Americanos of the twentieth century [8] and is the first Portuguese-American to have her work recorded for the Library of Congress, housed in the Hispanic Division. The Portuguese-American Women’s Association (PAWA) named her 2003 Woman of the Year.[9] She was appointed to the six-person U.S. Presidential Delegation to open the American Pavilion at the World’s Fair/Expo 98 in Lisbon.[10] She lives in New York City and the Springs area of East Hampton with
Christopher Cerf, whom she married in July 2015.[11]
"Songs of the Soul, Songs of the Night," The New York Times, Sophisticated Traveler Magazine, September 18, 1994
Signatures of Grace (Dutton, 2000). Essay on Baptism. (In conjunction with Mary Gordon, Andre Dubus, Patricia Hampl, Ron Hansen, Paula Huston, Paul Mariani).
"Carving the Fruitstones," for anthology about short fiction, 2004, Greenwood Publications.
"This Howling," essay on the Azores/introduction to novel by João de Melo (My World Is Not of This Kingdom, translated from Portuguese by Gregory Rabassa), Aliform Press, 2003.
Children's literature
"The Kingdom of Melting Glances" short story in A Wolf at the Door (Simon & Schuster, 2000, in fourth printing)
"A World Painted by Birds" in Green Man anthology (Viking, 2002)
"My Swan Sister," title story in Swan Sister and Other Stories (Simon & Schuster, 2003)
^"Within the Lighted City". Women's Review of Books. 1998-03-01. Katherine Vaz achieves this broader scope in Fado and Other Stories, a first collection that won the 1997 Drue Heinz Literature Prize.
^"ABOUT". KatherineVaz.com. Retrieved 1 April 2024.